Strangers In The Night

By Shreeja Ravindranathan

Compliments from drunk girls in bathrooms of clubs 

are humanity’s Sakura blossoms.

Fleeting blurs 

of slurred flattery 

that lotus through pools of vomit 

rising above envy and self-loathing

always sincere 

always raising another woman’s spirits even if they’re 

tumbling down.

Ladies left the dance floor to pluck a rose but now 

they’re on bathroom floors plucking thorns off of each other,

(bar) tending breakups and body image issues 

with cocktails of tissues, pep talks, sass and hugs 

and disembodied hands and voices find their way through the gaps under stall doors offering 

tampons and sage advice, “When some one compliments you, don’t question it. Just say thank you”

— so wallflowers won’t slip through the cracks.

And tomorrow as you roll out of bed 

and through the fermenting haze of beer breath and stale perfume hugging your skin,

the faint note of tipsy truths from 

those strangers in the night 

will linger, 

to brew self-love in the back of your mind 

and prop up hungover heads high

By Shreeja Ravindranathan