It’s the third party without you by my side, or maybe the fourth. But it is the first time I have let the drops of alcohol burn my throat and take me to a place other than your arms.
For the first time, I want to drift away to a place other than your memories. So tonight I have carefully chosen my friends to restart my life after this break up.
Don’t worry, I am not planning on having a breakdown and cuss you when alcohol has slightly taken over my senses. I won’t let your dirty secrets slip off my tongue. I still believe in the power of silence.
Though I can’t deny that it is a task to sit and watch them chuckle as they talk, just like we would have.
But now that I am a few shots down I am feeling foolish. For trusting you more than myself. You know? That was the reason I chose to have my first sip of alcohol with you. I believed you will be there, even if I lose control over myself.
It is strange that I still feel the touch of your hands around my shoulder and the smell of your cologne in the air. I hear a roar of people dancing which brings me back to the present world.
There is a couple high on love, dancing and enjoying their time. I envy the girl or maybe both of them. This could be us only if you hadn’t changed your mind.
“Come on, join us on the dance floor,” a friend of mine brings me out of my zoned out state. I told you I have carefully chosen ‘my people’ this time.
I take her hand and jolt up towards the floor. After a few seconds of hesitation, I have become one of them, lost amid the sweating bodies each one smelling of alcohol and smoke.
Even without trying, I have forgotten all about the scents around and am concentrating on the music in an attempt to match my steps to its beat.
But even now, when I am dancing, with alcohol flowing in my veins; I can not deny the presence of your name in the rhythms of my heartbeats.
So I shout out your name. Carefully, not at the top of my lungs but at a pitch that is enough to blend in with the voices shouting and repeating the lyrics of the songs in chorus.
Finally, tiredness has started to take over the ‘high’ of alcohol. I look around to check on my gang. Two of them are still lost in the music and one struggling to fit her wallet in the bag. I go and help her while making my way to the smoking-room to find the last one of us, who is trying hard to keep herself sober.
The moment I reach her, she plants a kiss on my cheeks and wraps her arms that smell of alcohol and tobacco around me.
Perhaps, it is my homecoming, to myself, to the love I deserve. Here, what the senses feel is overpowered by what the heart feels and not the other way round!
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash