Dancing with Despair

I have danced while music played,
and smiled, although despairingly,
through tears at smiles not meant for me.
My soft eyes, though brown and drab,
have strived to glitter, with scant success,
as others shone bright, emitting light
beneath their lashes, lush and long.
While I lurched in crazy drunken spirals,
others, precise, performed their pirouettes
and slid across the polished floor
and smiled and laughed and more:
completely at their ease.
What terminal disease decrees
despair my partner in this dance?
Is there no chance to sit the music out,
a listener, discrete, devout?
While others whirl and dip I slide and slip.
Must I be a half-a-pair with stumbling feet,
inept novice, graceless lout who, led about,
never has an easy air dancing with despair?