What the Night Whispers

Two AM: the time of day when I really should be asleep. 

I have an early start tomorrow, and I absolutely cannot be late, I tell myself.

I should seriously sleep.

That’s what I told myself three hours ago. 

Two AM: the time of day when I shouldn’t be reading a book.

Of course, I was never one for proper schedules. I never liked routine, and never was I any good at following it. Thus, here I am: awake at this ungodly hour. The intoxicating fumes of insomnia insist on choking me until my eyes water. 

Sleep does not come easily. Not even in the dead of night.

How I Met Your Mother tells me that nothing good ever happens at two AM, but I beg to differ—partly because I spend my early mornings up on the roof and not in a bar, partly because I am lucid and not wasted, but more so because I’ve long since decided that How I Met Your Mother is well in another dimension I will never find myself in.

Two AM has some good in it, although the rest of the city is coloured dark from last night’s black eyeliner that won’t seem to smudge off. 

In the wee hours of the morning, when all but the restless sleep in their beds, the night does this magical thing. 

It whispers in the language of secrets, stories, starlight.

If you’re quiet enough, you can hear everything.

From down the river, echoes flow from the nightmares of a child who just wet his bed. He can still feel the spiders crawling up his arms and legs. Nasty little buggers. 

The wind tries its best to carry whispers of lovers too shy to speak, tucked away at opposite sides of the city. Their unsent poems echo through the air, and they float up into the sky, too soft to reach the other’s ear. 

Not nearly soft enough are the sobs of the broken hearted girl next door. The one you want to put your arm around and comfort. 

“Yeah, it sucks, I know,” you want to say.

Then, even louder is the old man plucking at his guitar a few streets away, praying that he’d get his chance at happiness. Praying so hard that sobs replace words.

At two AM, the restless wake, and the night whispers.

And if you’re quiet enough, you’ll hear its hushed sounds. 

And if you’re keen enough, you’ll listen to what it has to say.