Swaying, jiving, stepping to the pulsations

We let the music decide where our body goes next,

Captive to the basement bops

To an outsider we are happy, delighting in an adolescent glow,

But in the off moment, a crack appears,

A stony look, a pursed mouth, a clenched fist.

Here and there we forget to be here and now

Because lurking just beyond this disco room,

We remember our other self.

The self that aches for a missing sister,

Her absence a chasm, a vacuum, a hellish pain.

She was shot you see, shot and killed.

And an hour before, the boy grinning as he does the disco slide

Broke up with his girlfriend

Why yes, he cried.

Perhaps if we groove fast enough,

With sufficient enthusiasm,

The other self will leave us alone.

Mourning self, this is not your moment.

Do you hear me?

I came to let the disco music wash my other self away.