Shadows after midnight

Staring at the ceiling, counting shadows in the dark. The hours stretch out, each minute pulsing softly in the silence. The stillness wraps around me—a peace that only exists in these quiet hours, where my mind drifts along invisible lines and shapes, watching shadows shift with the faint light from the streetlamp outside. They curl and stretch, filling the room with a quiet company that demands nothing.

In the dark, my thoughts loosen, drifting up from the depths where I usually keep them buried. Fleeting memories, half-formed dreams, unspoken regrets—all the things that remain unacknowledged during the day rise to the surface here. Shadows cast by things I can’t change or bring myself to face fully. Yet, in this darkness, I can let them exist without the need to resolve them, just shapes moving quietly, reflections of pieces I’ve tucked away.

Maybe that’s why I’m awake, letting the shadows keep me company instead of seeking the usual distractions. Each shape on the ceiling holds a fragment of a story—a lost conversation, a memory that slipped by, a feeling I couldn’t name. In these early hours, nothing feels urgent, and I don’t have to find answers. I only have to watch and breathe, letting them pass through me like echoes of moments I can finally allow myself to feel.

Somehow, in these hours before dawn, stripped of the usual pretense, I feel closer to something real within myself. Here, unguarded, with the shadows stretching across the ceiling, I find a sense of presence I can’t always reach in the brightness of day. And as night deepens, I lose track of the shapes above, letting them blur together in the quiet, holding space for everything I am, have been, and might someday become.

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It’s 4.38 and I have been awake for hours. My head hurts, I might count more shadows to help me fall asleep.