Fools

Bodies pushing and pressing,
The crush putting hands in awkward places,
Ignorance’s epitome barges through, shoulder down,
Timid nature is punished for lacking aggression,
Vodka can be smelled in the breath of strangers,
All dressed in flannel shirts, denim skirts, saddle boots and cowboy hats,
All buying into the idea of a good night;
What I really need now is a friend,
One is drunk, dancing to the rhythm, in the bliss of oblivion,
Making sure not to die with his music in him,
Another is further away than I thought, hidden behind glassy eyes,
Silent in my company that once brought animation,
The rest, well, are close in name only, forever drifting,
A growing distance greater than that between Pluto and the Sun,
While faces I know in passing blank me, one by one,
As if we never exchanged pleasantries at any stage in recent memory;
They are all fools, stumbling over words and chairs,
Smashing glasses and relationships simultaneously,
This place is a disaster zone destroyed by naivety,
And its occupants are both the cause and the victims,
And they are the fools for buying into this idea,
Buying the hats, guns, sheriff badges and everything,
All believing this theme will make it ok,
When it doesn’t at all, despite increasing numbers;
Yet, I am the bigger fool because I also bought into the idea,
In the shape of a rip-off Indiana Jones hat,
And I fail to turn up for the ball, yet nobody cares,
Not about me, not about strangers, only about the line dance,
So I lose myself in the crowd, amidst the fools, but away from them too,
Lost in a mass of people too preoccupied with themselves to notice anything else.

(Fools was written after a bad night out - as a sober person, Fools represents the feelings I go might go through on a night out that's not going well).