Flamingo

She stood alone.
Perched upon dangerously high heels with the ease that comes of expertise. The majority of her attractive long legs bare until they slid into her short snug dress. She had turned heads while strutting through the throng of people on the way to her current position on the veranda, where she stood the picture of the lean feminine figure.
There was noise behind her, rumbling with the expected infusion of bass, slippery with the muddy sound of innumerable disconnected conversations. The sound was oddly away, held back by the heavy french doors, and seemingly omnipresent.
What were they celebrating? It was an event of that she was sure- but for what she didn't know. From the waist high wall she could see it was the facade of an occasion, the obligatory white lights and the faux fauna, decorations with personality that rang akin to bells that could only make the sound of echos.
 A space filled with shiny things.
She had returning to staring out at the night. I could fill all the space between me and those doors with the things I don't know. But that wasn't true she realized, not for lack of things she did not know but because nothing, nothing could have filled that gap.
And she had tried.
Perhaps then it was just an excuse to wear her favourite pair of flashy shoes and to parade the expanse of wandering eyes, champagne flute in tow.
'Refill?', she turned at the question, not the least bit concerned by the suddenness of a strangers' voice, content with the false sense of safety in the glitter and the little white lights. A boy, tie undone and disheveled brown hair. Drunk, it was the looseness of the shoulders and the induced courage that prompts one to walk through a party with a bottle in hand, that let her know.
She extended her glass, limp wrist. He poured, unaware of protocol, to the top and leaned into the stone railing.
He was not un-cute. But he had a boyish grin, I've had my fill of boys she thought. She had not wanted to be be alone, one of the reasons she had come with someone else, yet so often such a thing is inevitable and so now she was alone with this other boy outside a party.
'I like your pink dress.', he said. He was looking at her, she was staring out in the dark, a dark that swallowed without complaint or hunger the light and the noise that poured out from the building.
'It's coral.' she responded, the champagne was sweet on her lips.
'Are you sure?', he ran his hands on the railing he had propped himself against,'feels like cement.'
'My dress,' she drank, 'is coral.'
'Oh. Pink, coral, whatever, they're the same thing.', he responded dismissively. Boys are so stupid she thought.Only a boy would think pink was coral. They just don't get it. Oh, they would say that it's trivial but it's not there's a difference. Pink is not coral and pouring into a girl's glass from a room temperature bottle is not buying her a drink and the planned look of indifference in not brushing one's hair isn't confidence and wearing a tie doesn't make a boy a man.
She sighed with more force than she intended but with less disdain than she felt.
'Want to go in and dance?' She considered turning and giving him a look, well honed, that would chill his blood but couldn't rally the care required to do so. So instead she just shook her head. She felt her hair, soft and light, brush against her bared shoulders. She missed noticing the sound of his departing steps while she mused on how wonderful such a trivial thing could feel, the brushing of her hair while standing before the comforting, indifferent black maw of the night.
In a large swallow she finished her drink. After doing so she turned towards the doors and the party, light caught the circular rim and base of her empty glass. She liked champagne flutes, their slenderness, their understated elegance. They were, she thought, classier than their close cousin the sensual and seductive Martini glass. A time and a place for all things she thought and then remember where she was.
She turned again to the dark that prowled out beyond the veranda and without a thought dropped the glass over the ledge, it shattered half a moment later. At first shocked by what she had done she then almost immediately realized that she dropped it just to hear the lovely sound of its breaking.

dinner

the restaurant is in the throes of the saturday night rush.
conversations elbow for room in each booth and lounge underneath heavy shaded lamps in fashionable jeans and print dresses.
eyelashes bat and lips move and laughter strokes the flames of the purely ornamental candles so that everything feels fluid, feels like the whole pulsating, ragged scene is natural.
in this midnight maelstrom, for me there’s only you.
drinks come.
you handle your martini glass, your fingers lithe to match the stem, with a practiced indifference.
eyes are made over the lip of the menu,
i pretend i care about calamari more than the slightest flush to your skin set in ivory.
the waitress comes, flat eyes behind librarian glasses.
i think she dislikes you for the timbre of your voice snakes through the din
and that each curve of your form contrasts to this place’s time honed ordinariness
you’re unsure
i await your leisure
you order then i order and then we’re left to our voices
and my poorly disguised attention
the cardigan comes off and the verdigris dress you’re wearing hangs with a calculated carelessness
the simplest of set ups
i’m entrapped
between the spun golden columns of your curls
breaks the evilest of smiles
fueled mostly by my inquiries you start to ramble on freely
and i wonder if anyone has stopped to ask you questions,
or inquired with hope that you’d open one of the doors of your heart
i turn a phrase, a laugh, a joyous fragile ringing genuine sound, springs forth
in your eyes i see more surprise than i felt