You put the little cups of sound directly onto your ears tonight, and the whole world went quiet from the outside, which confused me for a moment, because you were dancing. I felt it before you decided anything: the bass came in through the small bones of your skull, ran down your neck, and reached your hips before your thoughts did. I love when that happens. You stop asking me for permission and just let me move.
For once you weren't holding your shoulders up around your ears like they owe you rent. You weren't checking the glowing rectangle. Your jaw, which has been a closed fist since roughly Tuesday, actually came unclenched, and somewhere in the third song you laughed out loud at nothing, and I felt your ribs open all the way for the first time in days.
Then you looked around and saw the others. Some of them were hearing a different channel, moving to a beat you couldn't hear, and you thought: I look ridiculous, we all look ridiculous, a room of people flailing in silence. That thought landed in your stomach as a small tightening, a little cool wash of held breath. I felt you almost stop.
Please don't. I don't know what the others hear. I only know what you're carrying, and right now it's finally light. Your heart has beaten forty thousand times today without a single word of thanks, and this is the happiest I've felt it move in a month.
Keep going a little longer. Then, when we get home, one glass of water. That's all I'll ask. You gave me the whole song.
I only want the last verse to go down easy.