"After Party"

He’s feeling the need for coffee, he’s gone wrong enough with the Patron.
He never wants to see a Redbull can again.
Barely making it to the front door of the second-story drab of a place he wouldn’t quite call home— as if there is nowhere else— Joyce kisses him on the cheek and seems to dance down the hazily-lit street, as he sees this from his bedroom window.
He puts some Bravery on blast and replays Joyce in his head. He should have invited her in. She would make him happy.
The songs still play, the smudged Sperrys are staying on, the neighbors are pissed— he’s taking it easy in the armchair. The windows are open and the hot summer night lures him to loosen that herring-bone tie. San Jose’s skies loom in dark, the downtown still dances and glows in and out below.
He seems to not notice these things, the burning coffee on the stove, the tentative lights outside, the stiffening heat of the air, the sinking sofa cushion, the spilled change from the cab, the music— the only lasting party is in his head.
And Joyce is in there: she is dancing down the street, regretfully.