...tuve de tu boca en su frialdad...

The moment when you walk into the salon from a freezing evening.

Greetings and hugs and kisses, followed by gasps and shivers and exclamations remarking on coldness of noses or chilliness of hands.  And then you acclimatise to the temperature, like a diver adjusting to the pressure, until you're the one surprised by the cool kiss of a recent arrival.

...Besos impregnados de amargura...

At the end of the tanda I'm kissed on the cheek.

It is a happy moment, but as is always the way with tango, there is a little bitterness there.

Neither of us wanted it to end.

...llevando mi ansiedad de amar...

I know some people who get anxious.

Frightened before a milonga.  That they won't be invited to dance.  That they'll be turned down cruelly by anyone they invite to dance.  That they'll be laughed at for their incompetence or dismissed for their ordinariness.  They think of themselves as invisible.  Nobody that anybody would seek out.

I find that these people are very often the best dancers.  The most compassionate, passionate, exciting, surprising dancers.

I wish they could know how good they were.

But probably, changing that, would change them.  A paradox of confidence.

...en que me encandilé...

I'm not sure I know anyone who's completely immune to it.

There are those who are less influenced, less taken in.  But sooner or later, we all see someone, somewhere, who just takes our breath away.  We're dazzled.

Their walk, maybe.  Or the way they drag something unique from the music.  The way the ground seems to pull at their feet in a different way than it does for everyone else, perhaps.  Or else they're so quick that to the rest of us they're just a blur and a visual echo.

And in that moment, we can be inspired or deflated.  Maybe it gives us ideas and hope.  Someone to aim to dance with or to dance like.  Or else it gives us the idea that we should just give up now, because how can we possibly ever do that, be like that.

One of these is probably the correct response.

...la luz de tu mirar...

A dark room.  More atmosphere, apparently.  Though the atmosphere to me is improved by the ability to see who's dancing and, equally importantly, where they're sitting when they're not dancing.  Better still, if the whites of their eyes aren't shrouded in shadows and gloom, then we can actually make eye contact.  And eye contact equals a question.  And a question gets an answer.  And an answer may lead on to a meeting on the dance floor.

For me, the brighter the better.  But I'm happy as long as I can see across the room without needing a flashlight.

...yo maldeci...

The guy in front is taking great oblivious steps backwards.

The woman behind is flicking her heels high and wide at every opportunity.

And I, in the middle, silently curse.

But things are changing.

The wide radius kickers and the oblivious step-backers are fewer and fewer.

There are more and more places where social dancers actually dance socially.

I curse less these days.

...de toda tu crueldad...

We sometimes take comfort in other people's cruelty.  It lets us feel better about our own.

And you're the cruelest.  You know you are.

It makes me feel better about myself to think this of you.