I Don't Mind the Dancing

 

I get in my own way,

tripping over my own feet

and my intentions.

It’s a delicate maneuvering

around the impasses

I put out for myself.

 

A skip, or hop, a jump,

a twirl, a duck and dodge,

a little limbo, a lot of

two steps, just to avoid

the pitfalls I’ve placed

in my already precarious path.

 

Sometimes it’s with a partner,

whose moves I don’t know,

to swing around these dangerous

and seductive curves in twirls and

twists of misunderstanding, understanding,

patience and playful dalliance.

 

Mostly alone though,

tip-toeing through mine fields

of self-destruction,

flicking cigarette ashes everywhere

with each new contortion of the body

and misinterpretation of the mind.

 

Waves of passions and emotions

flooding this way and that, across

a treacherous landscape designed

with murder and malic in mind,

like walking on the Moon in sandals

with just enough air for a one-way trip.

 

A sadistic bandleader, lips curled with

gleeful sadism, as they meter out the

unrelenting time signature for a mambo

that no one seems to really know,

through the broken glass of shattered dreams,

spread across the floor.

 

I don’t mind the dancing though.

I sort of like the dance.