Dancing Blind
When the chandeliers shattered, we did not stop.
The velvet faded first, then the gilded mirrors,
then the faces of the people who paid to watch us float.
It is easy to move when the world is watching -
when the floor is polished, and the lines are clear.
Anyone can waltz under a brilliant sun.
Then, the quiet room swallowed the light,
and the floor became an ocean of pitch.
In the dark, your face was the first thing I lost.
I could no longer prove you were beautiful.
I could no longer check if you were looking back.
There was only the sudden, violent weight of your pulse
pressed against the center of my palm -
the singular proof that I was not alone.
The panic was a cold stone in my throat.
To take a step into absolute blackness
is to demand that the earth meet your foot halfway.
We stumbled. You bruised my ankle;
I tore the hem of your coat.
The rhythm degraded into something raw, unpolished,
stripped of all the graceful lies we rehearsed.
We stopped dancing for the audience, for the music,
for the fragile illusion of control.
We danced to prove that two people,
lost together,
are no longer truly lost.
The dark does not ruin a dance; it reveals it.
It strips away the performance until only the structure remains -
two bodies, breathless and terrified;
proving that a blind fall
held tightly enough,
holds more beauty in its terror
than perfection ever knew.
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