As they gathered on the outside
She stood plainly in their sights
Directly beneath a spotlight,
A street light, extended above her on a post
In the middle of the room
And under foot the grey and cracking stone of a sidewalk
That followed her where ever she went
Like a storm cloud set aside only for her
The people did not notice her
Or so it seemed to an untrained eye
They stole glances from their peripheral
At the corner of their eye
As it darted back and forth
As they conversed with old friends, and new ones
Chit chatting away with little of the lady on their minds
With little of her sidewalk or her light,
Or the little black heels she wore under foot
Or the sequin cocktail dress she wore,
All sparkling blue under the waning light
As they gathered about her
But were not about her
They kissed one another under mistletoe
Mistletoe's strewn in tinsel
As the holiday lights grew like snakes around the trees
As their breath was apparent before their faces
And she,
She in a dress with exposed knees
Shaking violently in the breezing freeze
To the people she would have called
Had they not retired to the inside
Leaving her and her personal light post,
Leaving her alone on her sidewalk.
And so it went on for a few more hours or so
The awkward lady in her awkward black shoes
Wishing away that the people might care
Hoping that someone might journey a stare
Or grow curious what was behind her made up smile
For she had kept her teeth just barely visible
Just barely visible escaping behind her lipstick spread lips
The blush on her face cracking on her skin
The mascara runny and graying where tears began spreading
That golden brown hair draped lovingly over ears
That were beat red and freezing in that unforgivable cold
She the lady in the awkward black heels
The blue sparkling cocktail dress,
Under the flickering of a high up light
Through the windows and the silky curtains she watched them
Through the glass and through the cloth she could see
Through the barrier and through the comfort she pondered
Outside the hall with but herself and her sidewalk
Her perpetual hell like a perpetual cloud
Cold and freezing, hardly feeling anything
But the harshness of absence
The absence of acknowledgment that she shouldn't have come at all
Her hands over one another
Fingers interlaced
And grey streams of mascara running down her canvas,
Down her painfully woeful face
When once she was young and full of brightness
She grew older and dingy grey
And the people all around her danced in the summer light
As winter had come and gone
Several times
and severely too fast.
The heel had shattered on her black left shoe
and the black right one was wearing away
Though she hadn't moved at all
There was a boy
No more than fourteen
Who ventured on over
and stood beneath her light
And he squinted through it,
Maybe perceiving the ghostly image
But she didn't think it so
But then he grabbed her wrist
A gently immediate sort of grip
And he pulled her forward
As she was removed from the light her heel stuck back on
The wearing of her clothes diminished
And she aged in reverse
The mascara rushing back up to its darkened place around her eyes
And she no longer shivered.
The rest of the people went in rewind
Moving ten times to fast
Till the snow was falling again
And they were safely and preciously inside
But she did not care,
She was young again
And he was the same
He'd always been there wanting to dance
He just never knew her name.
