Mosaic of the Age

The beat echoes through your chest,
banging against your ribcage
until your bones crackle—each rupture steady,
like the strides into your very first house party
just before somebody
retches down your shirt.

Sticky backs plaster against yours
as you nudge through the crowd.
A stumbling girl elbows you in the waist,
jabs a purpling bruise into your flesh.
She doesn’t apologize, only laughs it off.

As the speakers blare and
the bass sloshes in your ears
like the liquor in your hand,
solace hums in the whining synth-pop,
on the trembling dance floor:
fragments of fleeting youth,
glass shards that'd only cut your hands
trying to piece together.

So you sway in the sea of heated bodies,
thrill twisting into your veins.
The melody lurches like your insides while dancing;
piano chords strike each lyric
like strobe lights flashing across your flushed skin.

And when the speakers' pulse
at last shudders to a stop,
when the singer’s voice trails to a whisper,
the glow melts off of your skin.

You swing open the door and step outside,
the royal blue swallowing you whole,
arms flailing as you swim in
the underbelly of the new.
You stare at your hands,
the chipped nail polish
and slick liquor stains:
glass shards raking into your flesh.

But a mosaic glints back at you,
one of succumbing
to the mess
of becoming.