Wide-margined narrow-columned prose:
-----
Crooning swinging social
flashing beating singing
dark corner solitude.
Napkin-penned words
  testament to
    uniqueness.

I walk alone.

Friends sway together
My motion off-beat
Sharp-spined solitude
A square peg breaking
  round shapers.

I do not and do not wish
  to fit
    to belong.
A couple makes one
  odd
   a prime with no divisor.

I cannot abandon, cannot leap unthinking
  cannot surge floor-ward with them.
My self-made dicta hold me
I am comfortable. alone.
----------------

The spirit of motion does not near me
The spirit flinging arms lets mine be
    writing.
I sigh and cover my sight
The spirit will not seize me
I wonder if I am happy.

----------

Why do I shrink?
I am uncertain.
No, certain.
Of what I seek and do not find.
Uncertain it was never found.
Perhaps before, in an age past
Or now, in the future's saturation.

I am uncertain.
Unwilling to reach and grab the possible.
Once grasped what?
I cannot hold
I do not know...

I am uncertain.
I think unworthy
Undeserving of happiness
Afraid.
Spineless.
I must reach out
  grab hold
    wrench
But I am uncertain.

  Of ownership.
Dare I steal what's not mine?
But what do I possess?
Nothing.
My hands are empty.

----------

Am I bold?
Dare I dream?

---------

A dance saved.
With it what shall I do?
Dare I admit my empty card?
In vain I seek ones to fill it
I find twos.
What's done with a saved dance
  Preserved?
Packed under glass, sealed in oil
Inanimate
  In storage for eternity.

-------------

The cables tremble
  sensing approach
I likewise shake at departure.
I sense the act's incompletion
  and a soul void opens, gaping.
I scan faces searching
  spelunk my heart
    wondering.

I feel the act's repetition
Wave nature rippling through life-fabric
Peak and trough speaking of successors
Predecessors too.

I remember tear-soaked hands
   empty.
Remember nights --- and mornings, too ---
Made memorable by regret.

There is a grove knowing these tales
  trees attentive to teary threnody
    a figure shadow-dappled stumbling
      always alone.
Telling numbs the heart.

-

We've strayed.
I thought to tell of deja vu and tristeza
Cultures colliding like people.
I understand emotion
  I know respect
    Fate kills.

-------------------------
                        -CSA, on a napkin at the senior prom, June 2, 1997