First

And with the bright lights churning out their boozy glow,

The bar standing empty, only a glass and a half and a hasty once-over

With an old rag

Voices pecking at other voices, toasts to the untoastworthy

A darting look over at us from a man twice my age

The older couple nearby, tucking into ribs and etching a slippery sauce onto their teeth and chins

It made me hungry.

But my brain was already fizzing from the large white wine spritzer

Which I’d ordered to blend in and be normal.

Dizzying highs and frantic lows, desperately trying not to drop my dignity

But also come across as the most beautiful, most interesting girl you’d ever met

(Oh the pressures of being me)

Out on a Saturday night for once in a blue moon

And I barely looked around me, barely soaked up the atmosphere

Barely present, in the moment, there.