Someone I love is dancing with death. She is aglow with the momentary pleasure she is experiencing. Her eyes dance with merriment, her skin is flushed with the rosy blush of excitement. She wants to share her newfound dance partner with me, to give me the details of her joy. All she can see is beauty in her partner, but I can see through the lovely well tailored, fashionable suit it wears, to the life sucking grave the fabric covers. She sees the pearl buttons, I see the bleached bones beneath.
She is angry that I will not tap my feet to the music, smile to her whirling. I am crushed that she will not listen to reason. She has traded an endless well of wisdom, for a bubbling glass of wine. She is trading the song of the redeemed for an orchestra of mans wisdom, the heavenly harp for mans philosophy. And in listening long enough to them, she can no longer tell the difference. She has chosen to unstrap her slippers of peace, in trade for a glass slipper, razor sharp.
I suppose it hurts so much, because I remember my own dances with death, self, sin.
How the music called to my feet, how the feel of pleasures arms wrapped around me felt good, RIGHT even.
How we danced, stepping lightly, stepping lively, whirling around, oblivious that the glass slippers had shattered. On we danced, the broken glass shredding my soul, leaving bloody footprints behind on the halls of my memory. Producing a limp I carry still.
I cannot be party to her party. I can only wait, bandages in hand, hoping that she makes it out alive.
So she dances, while I weep.