Universe

We wound through the tangle of the tower blocks, your hand in mine, but so cold, so unsure.
The corridors hummed with whispers through the pipes, each one an innuendo that we both ignored.
But I felt it, that tension hanging in the air, loose, like the bulbs that barely hung from the ceiling. 
Their glow fading as your smile did, turning into something I wasn’t sure I recognized. 

You led the way, past the lifts that groaned in protest, shuddering with every floor they bypassed.
I could’ve sworn they knew what I was thinking, that I’d rather be anywhere else than here, anywhere but the fifth door on the fifth floor where that party was waiting.
Inviting us in.
Inviting us into a universe that wasn't quite ours to roam.

Up on the balcony you were trembling slightly beneath me as you stood, propped against the rail of hesitation.
I felt the cool night air grow warmer.
A breeze that flirted around us, teasing at your hair, as your knees buckled, ever so slightly.
And I thought, just for a moment, that you might change your mind.
That maybe you’d see this wasn’t where we belonged, not at this party, not tonight, not ever, but somewhere else.
Somewhere safe, somewhere we used to go. Like the seventh storey of that dereliction date we once had.
But you pressed against that fragile edge, and I couldn't help but think how easily we could tip, how your legs, how your balcony, how our universe, could collapse if I dared to lean in any closer.

My view from there, beneath you.
Dizzy from the height and your soft sighs.
This wasn’t the quiet, misunderstood city sprawled beneath.
No, not tonight anyway.
It was something closer, a view I could barely take in.
Something I couldn't handle without wanting to lose myself entirely in it.
Just to be with you. 

We stepped inside, the pale living room vibrating with the pulse of a party.
Your rectangular, bright pink mirror steaming from the countless bodies over-filled with booze that currently inhabited your front room.
Family pictures, yellowed and forgotten.
Just another one of your possessions falling down around you from the noise of their universe interfering with ours.

I tried to dance, tried to move to the beat, but every step felt out of sync with yours, like we were two strangers in a room full of oddly familiar, oddly subtle characters in which we were meant to relate to.
You smiled, but it didn’t reach your eyes, didn’t quite catch on the edge of the moment that I tried to outrun.
We could see the closet door in the corner, slightly ajar, like some forgotten secret waiting to be discovered, waiting for us to slip inside.
But we didn’t, no, you never.
You just stood there, caught in the half-light, in the space between wanting and not wanting.
Between staying and leaving.
Between us. 

The music, the laughter, all just noise in a room full of strangers.
I only cared about you, even if I wasn’t sure if you cared about me.
Or if you were just afraid to be alone.
This was a place where everything, including us, was slowly fading into something we couldn’t name. 

So you left, slipping down the stairs quietly, back through the lifts, the dim lights, and the silent halls.
And out into the night, away from the party, away from the doubt that clung to us like the smoke from the celebration upstairs.
In your room.
On your balcony. 

You left me in the noise and the doubt, carrying something fragile between us and our universe.
Maybe, I thought, it's my universe. 
Something I'm trapped in.
Something someone like you couldn't handle.
Something someone like you didn't want to handle.