Everything Looks Better in the Night

People dream about being in a place like this, toasting with celebrities, spilling drinks on faux fur, silently laughing through glitter lips. Photographers floating through the sea of the Hollywood Elite scene like buoys in the ocean, everyone holding on for dear social life. Beautiful people drowning in drinks. Beautiful people drowning in drugs. Beautiful people drowning in people.

Statuesque, i am frozen in my heels, as Hollywood swirls around me in blazing color. Flashes interrupt the silence of strangers locking lips; women grabbing tits. One, two, three more photos. I blink hard as my senses return. A fresh ocean breeze sends my attention to the dark night above. Alone stands the moon, all of the stars have been hand plucked from the sky, wrapped in pop art, and placed all around me.

I break my pose as i'm guided to a section of plush velvet parlor chairs. Hands on my thigh. Hands on my back. Hands on my face. Hands on my wrist. I don't speak the language, so i sit there unmoving. Cameras flash, my black lips sparkle into a grin. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and collect myself. I open them slowly, while my eyes finally start to adjust to this new blazing world.

The hands touching me don't belong to anyone. They've disappeared as quickly as they came. I whip my head around as the volume of my world is turned on blast. The sparkle is gone, the flame has burned it away. Beautiful people melting all around me, once frozen in perfection; now pooling in their own vanity.

I search for a friendly face, but once smiling faces have melted into gaunt expressions of helplessness. Dawn has finally made her entrance, slowly extinguishing the sins of the night. I feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, as i stand amidst the remains of my childhood dreams. I look for an ally, an escape, a purpose. Nothing. So i run.