All This Long Night

A long night of thoughts that will not calm. He is alone with himself and the silence. The walls hear him and nobody answers, and the ceiling is witness to everything. His mind circles every mistake, every word he should have kept back, every chance he did not move for. Then the turn: the long night has an end, every black thought has a story, and the morning comes even if it is a day late. He will not run from his thoughts tonight; he will face them, understand them, and ask them to wait. In English he names the hard questions: did I say the right things, take the wrong turns, give enough or hold back too much? They arrive because there is a part of you that needs attention, a wound you covered up. He sits with them until they have said everything. The man who knows darkness knows strength.