Someday My Dance Will Begin...

Ive been neglecting my books. I havent read anything in a really long time. Ive had some things on the mind lately. To no surprise, these things are not good. So I opened something up and read a few pages. Ive been on "Run With The Hunted" for a while now. Poems, short stories, from Charles Bukowskis' other novels. This caught my eye really hard. So im posting it.

"I would never forgive the girls for getting into those cream-colored coupes with the laughing boys. They couldnt help it, of course, yet you always think, maybe...but no, there werent any maybes. Wealth meant victory and victory was the only reality. What woman chooses to live with a dishwasher?

Throughout high school I tried not to think too much about how things might eventually turn out for me. It seemed better to delay thinking...

Finally  it was the day of the Senior Prom. It was held in the girls' gym with live music, a real band. I dont know why but I walked over that night, the two-and-one-half miles from my parents' place. I stood outside in the dark and I looked in there, through the wired-covered window, and I was astonished. All the girls looked very grown-up, stately, lovely, they were in long dresses, and they all looked beautiful. I almost didnt recognize them. And the boys in their tuxes, they looked great, they danced so straight, each of them holding a girl in his arms, their faces pressed against the girls' hair. They all danced beautifully and the music was loud and clear and good, powerful. 

Then I caught a glimpse of my reflection staring in at them--boils and scars on my face, my ragged shirt. I was like some jungle animal drawn to the light looking in. Why had I come? I felt sick. But I kept watching. The dance ended. There was a pause. Couples spoke easily to each other. It was natural and civilized. Where had they learned to converse and dance? I couldnt converse or dance. Everybody knew something I didnt know. The girls looked so good, the boys so handsome. I would be too terrified to even look at one of those girls, let alone be close to one. To look into her eyes or dance with her would be beyond me. 

And yet I knew that what I saw wasnt as simple and good as it appeared. There was a price to be paid for all of it, a general falsity, that could be easily believed, and could be the first step down a dead-end street. The band began to play agian and the boys and the girls began to dance again and the lights revolved overhead throwing shades of gold, then red, then blue, then green, then gold again on the couples. As I watched them I said to myself, someday my dance will begin. When that day comes I will have something that they dont have. 

But then it got to be too much for me. I hated them. I hated their beauty, their untroubled youth, and as I watched them dance through the magic colored pools of light, holding each other, feeling so good, little unscathed children, temporarily in luck, I hated them because they had something I had not yet had, and I said to myself, I said to myself again, someday I will be as happy as any of you, you will see."