Revelry

Before me lies my drink and I am drunk, wretched and unfeeling in the smokey revelry. The girls surround me always. Pretty emaciated faces bobbing beneath wreaths of golden hair like some earthly angel from days past when belief in the existence of such creatures still held. The ground spins. Piss drunk as I am my arms reach of their own accord for beer, now warm, and with shaking fingers I lift the can to my lips.

The women couple to the men like the closing of animal jaws. My eyes light upon my phone and the red and white flame stands aglow, inviting. Tinder. New message from Zoe. Would that I could read this missive but my arms hang limply at my sides. Deliver me from this place and unto the warmth of Zoe's amber skin. Honey against the white of her tight bikini. I see it again without looking, an image I know now like no other, like some idol or icon stood before me as I squeezed and pumped with brutal efficiency all over the peach fuzz glow of my bare midriff.

Decadence, decadence, wines and cheeses and meats on platters shining in the light, bring them now to the symposium and let us dine. Bacchus leaves, quietly, his jowls lost of their ruddy glow. I rap upon the table and the lads laugh. Bring now the vodka, bring now the rum. They set the burning drink before me and it is gone in a single pull. I am warm. The dark panes of the sliding glass door reflect the perfect likeness of the sky.

I am going to vomit. The room pitches and rolls. Again now just as every other time I swell and stand pointing towards the heavens, pulsing and pushing against the delicious cage of tight blue jeans. My eyes close and I demand the nausea rest but it will give me no quarter and again her amber skin and her inviting pink lips and I must stand and walk with shaky legs towards the balcony.

The night air is cool on my face. Somewhere in the dark a coyote or somesuch creature howls. I wonder whether beneath my liquorsoaked clothes there is some more pure essence but the question itself declares what is already clear and known in my heart. The acidic drink washes away the fine exterior I have carved and attended to so dutifully all these years and beneath that lies what? How could anything remain?

A man is stood next to me. He is leaned against the railing, drunken same as I and as he turns towards me he stumbles and for a moment the fluid motion seems broken into discrete fragments and every line becomes statuesque and it looks as though he is dancing.

"Thanks for inviting me, man," he calls, and he smiles, "I really..." but the words trail away. I know what he wants to say. The sky becomes gray and soon the day will begin again.