Loneliness in A Crowded Hall

I'd like to be one
Of the idealized
Wedding party-goers.
With ideal faces made up
In beauty parlor ways
Concurrent with the
Popular styles of the present days.

They dance and have feelings
Of joy and of wonderment
At the current ideal situation
They find themselves in.

They are covered in ghost-like
Smoke that regurgitates
From a machine, painted with
Electric LED ambulance-siren
Lights which flash for a fictional disaster

I feel an aching sense to join them
Like a child who wanders into a loving embrace
In a dark and foreign place.

Where shadows cast grim reflections
On once reassuring faces.
Which shift into monstrous
Masks of "foreigness"
In the loneliness of a crowded hall.

The dancers whirl in unison
Like cheerful Roombas around the wooden
Chess-board floor.

They are all Rooks waiting to checkmate
My King of self-consciousness.

I long to be like the pensive pawn
Who moves when urged and only ever looks forward.

I tap my foot and try to synchronize
With the playing band all dressed in
Black tombstone ties,
Black gravel shoes,
White dove shirts,
Black raven vests.

Now outside the rectangular hall,
I feel the chill of the night.

The wind pummels its desperation onto me
And candy wrappers are thrown
Aggressively by its might.

Strolling to the edge of the concrete sidewalk
I spy sanguine spattered sky
And my worries seep away.

I rejoin my place in the dancers
Sacred ritual, their marital Taj Mahal.
Isolation becomes another forgotten nightmare
As my loneliness dissipates within the crowded hall.


(49 Lines)