The room is dark.

 

There’s nothing surprising about the void. The silence in my head. Or the drumming in my heart.

 

I'm standing scared and untouched. Bruised only by the stares that are given to me from across and throughout the room.

 

Then it hits me.

 

It’s the first thing that I feel.

 

It’s the heat. The heat of the lights blinking.

 

The heat racing from the bass of the speakers.

 

The heat of your stare on my back as it burns me with judgment.

 

You know I am there. You sense me. And I sense you touching me with your stare. Gracing up my back with your glare.

 

The commotion around me ignites and you are lost in the smoke of the ecstasy the bodies release through their laughter and dancing.

 

Within me there is the fluttering. The fluttering I was hoping would not come.

 

The motion. The commotion. The ocean. Within me. The emotion sickness your stare gave me.

 

It’s the butterflies.

 

They're drowning.

 

They're clawing at my sides and trying to break free. Trying to speak. One escapes and kisses my tongue.

 

I close my mouth quickly. Did you hear it? Did you hear me? Hear me calling to you from across the room?

 

Another flutters out and then three. They're sputtering out and through me; pouring like water from a broken faucet.

 

They're dancing around my feet and gracing me towards your direction. Pulsing through my veins and taking control.

 

Blood no longer flows through me. But they do.

 

The butterflies.

 

I can't stop them.

 

Here I am.

 

Say something they say.

 

I breathe.

 

I feel it head on. Your stare. And it’s burning more than those flashing lights.

 

It’s pounding at my heart harder than the banging of the bass drums.

 

My heart is a timpani beating for you.

 

My insides are a meadow which butterflies dance.

 

And my pulse is a silent. Gone. Vanished. Extinguished.

 

"Hi".

 

The butterflies have gone.

 

And the crickets have come.