The cheers are loud around the living room, numbers being counted down in a chorus as they drop the huge sphere in New York City (on the TV, of course).  My mind registers everyone's cries of "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" as new cans of beer are cracked open for another round.  My thoughts may absorb this information, but on it they do not dwell--for my mind is elsewhere.

Instead of on the drinking and celebration, my senses are focused solely on your fingers laced with mine.

I've already dug my grave by inching over to sit closer to you--hell, I ruined myself the moment I first took the dance floor with you in the lead.  I've told myself that tonight, I refuse to care what the reprocussions of my actions are.  And I still don't care.

But (because) I know that, come tomorrow, all of this will have gone away.  You don't love me, I wish I could tell myself this truth.  But I suppose love really does blind you. (Me.)

I don't care.  I want your hand in mine.  The gentle tapping of your fingertips against the piano keys on my belt, the way you slide your fingers out of mine just so you can put your arm around my shoulders, I hope you don't mind if I fall asleep against the warmth you've provided.  

And then it occurs to me.

Maybe you don't care, either.  Maybe, just maybe, you're just like me.  You want to let go, if only for tonight, and see what it would be like if we were together.  (Maybe you're just drunk.)

Maybe I don't care.

And even though I know, that once I leave your arms tonight I may never be with you like that again; that come Friday, when we see each other, tonight never happened...I'll always have it to myself.  Even if you want to forget.  All of your smiles, the laughter, your fingers splayed on my stomach as we sit and talk with old (new) friends, all of it is engraved into the walls of my mind.

Even though tonight never happened, it doesn't change anything.  For when I got home, your smell was still clinging to my clothes.