On Dancing

I wish I got as excited as you do when a generous hand outstretched becomes an invitation for the evening. I wish I had enough wit and confidence, or least the allusion of one, to go up to another human being and ask them to be vulnerable. To let feet follow and allow limbs to be thrown in patterns they never knew existed but you lead them nonetheless. A faithful and fearless prisoner. An explorer of creaking and worn wooden floors, finding their dips through your own. The small spaces when the floors found the ground twenty feet below to be so satisfying, their stretch their fingers towards the earth and with each rock step get a little closer. What an interesting tale, of the hardwood floors who wish to go home? Of the man who wishes not for a date but rather a partner to commit crimes of the form, of the hierarchy of dance circles and ballroom tropes? I never quite caught your name; it disappeared in a flurried frenzy of madness, high fives, laughter and the light cock of the head that says “let's get out there”. Though I believe I recognized the vicious drip of a “J” somewhere in the small string of syllables that spell out you out. You ever find it funny how we desire to engage our evenings with strangers but we never quite catch the name unless our company happened to last longer the Charleston, and even then, do we bother to ask for the name a second time despite the known embarrassment of not hearing it the first? If we go nameless, right footless and perhaps faceless, what features have we got that remain recognizable for the following week? Maybe it is the gray and black striped fedora hiding a small forest of dark brown hair. Or perhaps it is the heaping steps that take of more room than the homesick hardwood is willing. The steps wrapped in warn shoes certainly not made for dancing but they dance anyway, assuring their presence through legs that move with a clumsy elegance that can only say “I'm here”. The audience is forced to do nothing else but acknowledge the presence, whether they themselves are aware of it or not and change their pace so that it matches the loudest one in the room? Tell me sir, what is like to be so loud your name is never heard?