Raising a glass.

He raises the glass to his lips. Drinking with no desire to savour the flavour and paying no attention to the burning in his throat. His head swims with thoughts of anger and desperation, a circle of disastrous emotion slowly breaking him down, pushing him closer and closer to the edge. He can feel the temptation of self-destruction and he wonders if this time, like all the others, he will be able to come back to himself. He doesn’t know.

He raises his eyes from his shaking hands and drink, towards the dance floor in front of him. People everywhere cloud his vision, body against body. Lights flash and the bleak outlines of people dancing in the confined darkness can be seen as they move to the beat of artists who don’t care. Through the midst of it all he can see her as clearly as if the sun itself shone through the fog of people, illuminating her and only her. Their eyes lock and for a moment he can think of nothing but her and the way she makes him feel. As if in the eye of a storm he sits in clarity, nothing between him and her but the past. The people indistinct like shadows in twilight mean nothing to him; they can’t touch them in this moment. But sadly, moments are not meant to last forever and soon the storm rages on around him. She looks away and he stares at the spot where he had seen her. A tear rolls down his cheek and he catches it on his finger. He looks at it. This physical representation of the agony he is enduring. Glimmering in the light as if a crystal, but it falls and his agony continues.

A man, strong in thought, weak in action, brought to the brink, his world crumbling around him. How could one do this to him? How could one person, one woman have this effect on him. He thinks of her, of the smell of her hair and her smile, of the feel of her skin and the feeling of euphoria as she hugs him. These things haunt him as he rises from his seat to get another drink.

A drink in one hand he sits down and searches the floor for her once again. He can’t see her through the masses of people. Here and there he sees people he knows, dancing, laughing, smiling, but tonight he can’t take part.  He can’t disbar his emotion as if it were nothing and smirk his way through it all. She’s out there, somewhere, and as he searches for her he can’t help but wonder if she thinks of him, if she is just as broken and tortured as he is. He doubts it.

His actions have brought him to this point, fragmented, shattered, lost. His contempt for himself is matched and juxtaposed only by his feeling for her, and as he sits the alcohol slowly drains away his pain and he realises how he has gotten there. Those actions, which so fill him with dread and regret, whose existence plagues his thoughts night and day as if they might change if only he could focus on them long enough. They are caused by his inability to love himself, and subsequent rejection of those who would love him. He realises that self-destruction cannot run hand in hand with happiness. That as long as he contains such a burning hatred for himself that he cannot look into a mirror without feeling as if he is looking upon one destined for hell he will never be happy, and thus will destroy whatever may make him so.

Out on the floor he sees her.  Once again she looks at him but after a moment he looks away; too ashamed of his own shortcomings to cope with the look she marks him with. It was a mark of pity, of sorrow and regret, and ultimately, unexpectedly, a mark of forgiveness. Women really are the most marvellous of creatures.  Kind to those who don’t deserve it, and forgiving of those who most need it. He is hers, forever or until the sun burns out and the universe cools and existence ceases. But watching her he knows that she will never be his, not so long as he cannot find a way to show her that she is all he wants, that she is the only one that could possibly make him happy.

He knows he doesn’t deserve her. What right would he have to fight for her? What right would he have to win?! But he can’t help himself. The way she moves, the way she speaks, it all serves to break down his barricades.  Force him into action. A smile from her and any sense of resolve he had to allow himself to move on fails. Who is he without her now?

The night goes on and as he watches her leave with a parting gaze over her shoulder at the defeated man he had become, he finds himself struggling with indecision. He had never said ‘I love you’ to anyone and truly meant it. He may think all women were beautiful, and in a way he loved all women, but not like her.  As he watched her leave thoughts plagued his mind. Thoughts of love and loss, of heart break and romance. This is not a girl, whom he deserves, nor does he deserve her love, but she is the girl he wants, and if given the time, she would be the one he would have given it all to.