Ojiugas

[Attempts]

1:38 AM

Lights swirling, a cacophony of sounds

translated into visual pleasures

A chord, the bass thumping, reverberating

not unlike engines of airplanes

about to take off

Music does the same —

no place too far, no heaven too hard to reach

The melodious wave hitting skin

Reaching out,

Bringing in,

Taking you in

To drown.

 

Liquids — sweat, tears, beers,

liquor, water, spit

Traded and mixed,

body on body, on body indeed

hand slipped past shoulders

Legs intertwined with someone else’s

perhaps a stranger’s?

perhaps a friend’s.

You’ll know for sure tomorrow.

 

Mingling bodies in sweltering heat,

Bobbing heads,

some moving around wildly,

sweat from tips of hair reaching you from across the room

An embrace of sorts,

A hug,

Welcome home.

 

It is dim.

The brightness of the lights is lowered,

to enhance the feeling, they say.

You feel the darkness envelop you,

the same time you feel the music wrap your senses.

 

It is hazy.

You feel lightheaded, as though your body were detached from your head

And you see your body left on the ground,

The music continues.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, the drummer almost reverently plays

The singer is replaced by an angel with no wings

The guitars clashing, strings mixing,

People are waving their hands in the air.

Are they dancing? Praying? Playing?

Maybe they are all three.

 

It is noisy.

You feel the harsh breaths of the stranger behind you,

as he breathes down your neck,

while he attempts to look at the view

from between shoulders.

The noisy splashes of beer escaping from bottles,

Of bottles hitting skin,

Or skin meeting other flesh.

Someone grabs you,

twirls you around

He is a stranger.

You will never see him again,

but you dance anyway.

You jump around, go under his arm,

a girl joins in.

 

A chord is struck.

The deafening applause brings you back to your senses.

Your ears ring,

is it done?

You look at your hands,

half-smiling at the sweat that’s building up on your palms,

forming pools bigger than the Pacific.

It is probably sweat,

it can be something else.

 

2:14 AM

A shout of thanks.

A scream of more.

 

Silence (but you can never be sure

your ears are still ringing)

Bam,

Bam,

BAM.

 

See you next year.