Vigil.

Midnight doesn’t arrive all at once.

It slips in slowly,

as if it knows it doesn’t belong.

It dims the voices one by one.

Silences the world without touching it.

And when everything fades,

I remain.

It’s a time without witnesses.

No one expects anything from me.

There are no calls,

no requests,

no urgent news.

Only me, whole,

in the gap between two worlds that were never mine.

The body wears a badge.

Fulfills a role.

But it’s something else that stands here, breathing slowly,

like someone who knows they’ve thought too much

and solved too little.

I’ve thought enough.

I’ve thought until hope emptied out.

Now I’ve learned just to stay.

Night has a way of holding you without warmth.

It doesn’t comfort.

It allows.

And there’s a gentleness in that

the day will never understand.

Some nights,

nothing passes.

No wind,

no memory.

Just the silent presence of time.

And when all is like this—

suspended,

quiet,

unhurried—

I begin to think

maybe that’s what it means to exist.

No questions.

No answers.

No sharp shape to carry.

Daylight doesn’t arrive as a promise.

It breaks in.

It brings back the mechanical gestures,

the hurried coffee,

the phrases spoken on autopilot.

The world lights up.

But I don’t feel any brighter.

I walk back home

with a kind of weariness that doesn’t weigh.

It just is.

I lie down.

Close my eyes.

And I still hear the clock.

Not the tick.

Not the tock.

But the space in between.

That’s where I live.