Twinkle, Twinkle

The music pounds in my ear, lights strobing in waves over my body, spotlights casting in wild looping swoops over the crowd. I fall off the dance, the rhythm of bodies pounding tile, of music within us, ropes loosening and I fall… slip away to the periphery, slammed back against the wall to slide down, sitting on my ass. The lights are pounding in my ears, as one dazzles in a blinding glance across my face. I can’t raise my hand to stop it. My chin hits my chest, I can’t raise, muscles once taught now unstrung to dangle like dropped anchorline, back end to the boat cut and we fall away, black waters as the line goes slacks. The lights flash over my again. It’s piercing, loud, into my face. I can’t handle it, but it keeps going. The music gets louder and louder. I hear her voice, Heaven is a Place on Earth, Heaven is a Place on Earth, Heaven is a Place on Earth and it’s all that remains, her voice isolated looping that chorus, the final phrase repeated over and over, the world shutting off as the voice stays strong until it fades too - first in little bits, background noise and staticky fading before the last drops of it go, transparent, ghostly, smoky, my eyes shutting on it, lights flickering out, shop closed up, I walk out the back entrance, no one home, no one ever will be again…

I was smoking on the balcony, overlooking the city. Planning the night, everything went smoothly, aimless conversation ambling over another plan for another party, over lights up and down long Manhattan drags below. I did a quick bump, drag off the cigarette, flick the butt down into air to fly away and become the stars. We discussed the venue, I discussed money.

I awoke in the middle afternoon, my head still pounding in bassline thumps from the previous night. A man was in my bed, I ignored him, taking a retirement the nearest room I could find to myself. I slumped, falling into the couch, low-slung sitting as I turned on the television and cracked a coke to come back into the world of the living.

I came home the night after it happened for the first time, the fifth time, each one as freshly bleeding as the last. I was burst, the thin membrane regrown to bleed again and again, tatters hanging loose. I curled in bed and sobbed, soiling the sheets I burned the next day. I took a shower and felt the flesh drip out, fall down my legs, sticking into the drain, rotting, my skin turning sickly each time.

Bruises were still smarting when I arrived, failure and isolation stinging as I curled in bed night after night. It was all a joke, right? Forced to flee and now given nowhere to take refuge… The world took me into its mouth and rejected me, a hard bone picked out from the soft flesh. Soaking in saliva, the wetness steadily becoming cold, I sat on the table and watched, looked up, wondering whether the warmth the giant could offer was really better than out here.