Realities

Sticky, sweaty, elbows jab. Strangers lean against each other, and the crowd sways in required unison. You're up there, on stage, and I'm down below. Trying to close my eyes, feel the beat, move alone, experience alone. Down here below your seldom gaze. Bodies packed tightly, the crowd steals my shut-eye-balance. So I look down at my feet, laugh at my worn attempt at polished nails, and promptly get dizzy, disoriented. Toes, heels, rocking, springing up, inching forward, tapping to the beat I'm searching for. A failed attempt, I look up. Face up the band, to you, with a strained neck, petite has not served me well this evening. Giving up on solitude, I join the masses watching your fingers hit note, after note, after note...

The crowd roars. Sometimes in waves, sometimes steadily. A constant reminder that I'm not alone here, even when lost in thought. And I am, lost in thought. What could be your reality - years of screaming, waving fans? Stampeding affirmation of crowds and wanderlust love thrust upon you - regularly? Yet, perhaps you love toast or despise olives? Crinkle your nose at sour milk? Common and everyday. Death and love, they must feel the same to you and I. As same as to you and he and to he and I, to us all. Most things must feel the same; a paper cut doesn't hurt less in front of a screaming crowd or from within the masses.

And then I have myself thinking, that I should ask you these things over coffee. I'd like to listen to your thoughts on realities and love and death and toast. Are you older than I? I could ask you so many things, and I, too, could tell you stories... And I have myself thinking that it's too late for caffeine; I'll have to have decaf. And I look up smiling. To you up there. And I realize I'm still down here. Is that it? Our realities?