Baila sin nombre (a Max Payne tribute)

It starts with a girl.
It always starts with a girl.
Somebody you gotta protect.
But you can’t.
That’s not how the dance goes.
Because someone always snatches her away from you.
Someone always does.
You dive down to the dance floor after her,
Bust some moves twenty years too young for your body,
Make a moron of yourself.
You wonder why you came here in the first place—
At the invitation of your “dearest friend”
To be a so-called protector, some “Great American Savior”—
To be a rent-a-clown for some rich idiot’s amusement.
Go home, old man.
Drink some of your favorite scotch,
Straight out of your favorite glass
Using your favorite drinking arm,
Then collapse into your favorite sweat-stinking mattress
In your favorite sweat-stinking suit.
It only makes you more of a fool.
But the band plays on and you keep dancing,
Dancing around buzzing hotshots
And faces you know are important but can barely remember,
All the while the faces you can’t help but remember are still burning in your eyes.

Of course you’re bound for a slip and fall.
As you lie there, a bullet of sense travels through your brain
In slow motion:
Your friend invited you here,
But you came of your own free will.

It’s sink or swim, brother,
And you’re not loaded down enough to sink just yet,
If you can still get a grip on yourself.

The music keeps playing on.
You stand up amid your own wreckage,
Shrug off the looks everyone shoots your way.
A bitter pill to swallow
Knowing you’re not what you used to be,
Knowing you did wrong by the girl.
No point to holding her close now.
But you can still see this through—
Deep down, you know all of those songs,
The nameless soundtrack of your life.
You walk through the motions again,
And each step feels more and more familiar
Because you know
There’s only one way
This dance can end.