The dark cave of the club holds us like a hug and we are surrounded by a couple hundred other people, all singing along with the same exact words, swaying together like a swarm of bees. Beads of sweat circle our hairlines, beads of water circle our plastic cups of vodka sodas, beads on a string circle your neck and fly in the air as we thrash along with the crowd, reckless. The lead singer calls for a circle pit as he begins to howl the chorus and we fall back, turn to each other and sing the words along with him. We are so close, I can feel your warm breath on my face, smell the lavender of your lotion, hear your heart beating. We say we never knew we could feel like this, we say no other person has a hold of our heart, we say please don’t take advantage of our softness, we say do you want to see where this thing goes, we say we could be magic and we just don’t know it yet, we say this moment is all we have so let’s grasp it and suck the life out of it like honey. Then the music stops and the crowd loosens like a belt buckle going to the next hole and you rattle your cup at me, say you need a refill. I say okay, staring at your flushed sweaty face longer than I usually let myself, wondering if we’ll ever say those things to each other outside of an anonymous club, outside of the spark of alcohol, outside of the cover of a song.
Ana Grave