Haze

I have this daydream, this hazy scene in my head: I walk through the front door of a party and you're there. You're standing there, just across the room, loosely clinging to a beer bottle, leaning against the wall in your leather jacket only partially committed to a conversation with a circle of strangers. You glance up when the door opens. Our eyes meet. You want me. I'm not sure who you're going to be for me or how my emotions will self-destruct for you, but I know I want you too. We move towards each other through the crowd, like a scene from some movie we would both hate. We perch in a corner together the entire night, ignoring all and any others hopeful for some sort of conversation spark with us. You, scanning the room as you speak to me and me, willing my eyes to pierce through your beam of conversational concentration. You invite me out for a cigarette again and again, not because you're craving the nicotine, but because you're looking for an excuse to be alone with me, with nothing but the chill of the wind between our carefully and cautiously thought-out words. I touch your arm lightly between conversation, willing you to remember the night outside of the bar, hoping something different will happen tonight. I watch your lips move as you speak of your passion for your most recently discovered piece of literature, suddenly realizing that I've never wanted to feel anyone's lips pressed against my own more than I do at this very moment. You lean into me and I am lost in your scent. I'm fighting to stay conscious; to laugh when you laugh, to respond when you leave a question hanging in the air, but it's hopeless and I close my eyes and let you engulf me. You lean closer yet and I realize you're looking straight at me now, waiting for something to happen. I step closer and close my eyes again, so ready to be tangled up in you.

The haze disappears.

I am awake and hyper-aware of my utter and complete hopelessness.