The people, the noise and the lights have faded into drifting silence.
I sit, close my eyes, and breathe deeply, inhaling this quiet space.
I hear consistent ticking,
feel my chest rise and fall, and my heart pat away inside.
It's so mysterious, this blackness.
Isn't it?
Don't you think it's amazing?
A reflection of a yellow lamp against the night - laced glass window.
My own face stares back at me, a soft glow.
Who is this girl?
Night fakes a great illusion,
for nothing sits in stillness.
The smallest breeze can tickle the tinniest blade of grass.
An insect crawls under dead leaves,
and a cat hides in shadow, blending with the cool splotches of darkness created by the trees, or perhaps an old wooden chair.
Someone somewhere, bends over with laughter,
or sits alone by a pool smoking,
or tucks their little girl between pink and purple sheets, and plugs in a night light,
or hides alone in a closet,
or steals a kiss on a moonlit path between the tallest trees, surrounded by sweet smelling honeysuckle and roses.
And across this world, day breaks, and people are bending toward the sun. People in brightly colored robes of fine silk are rolling over to greet majestic newness.
Women in cotton robes set up their tiny fruit stands in a noisy market filled with majestic treasures - chickens, corn, rice, fish, vegetables - the market is alive with spending and trading, and in the middle of the street, children play catch with an orange.
There is a little woman dressed in gold silky, radiating robes, that reflect each precious ray of the sun. She stands in the corner or a dusty stone building, separated from the people. She is watching them as she watches me when I sleep.
She is not like me, or like them. She does not see the children throw the orange the way I do or see the wrinkled woman sell her chickens the way I do.
This ubiquitous figure absorbs all.
She stands unnoticed on Wall Street and sees the man scratch behind his ear, and the bony woman sip her coffee through a tiny red straw.
And stands by silent as falling cotton.
She is neither beautiful nor grotesque, neither hate nor love.
She is the moment's holder.
She contains all the world's people on the tip of her finger. She saves the moments so carelessly thrown away.
She swallows again and again, and looking inside her, what you'd find -
the joy of a new born baby, the first time you rode your bike,
when you told that secret,
how you sat by yourself doing an art project in second grade, and spilled blue paint on the rug,
when you played junior soccer,
when you laid awake all night waiting for Santa to arrive,
when your mom put a band - aid on your first badly skinned knee,
the first time you dressed yourself,
when you sat alone for hours doing artwork for your dad,
the way you bent your finger back when you rang the doorbell at your friend's house,
how big your cheeks and how wide your eyes got blowing out all twelve birthday candles, and the purple nail polish you wore, or you mismatched socks, or the picture you tore from the magazine and taped on the wall, when you got in trouble for lying, and how you forgot to tie your shoe before the race, and how you had dirt smudges on your face after playing tag, and the exact moment the first tear slid down your face after losing your first love....
and the black stillness that surrounds you when you sit alone at night- those ubiquitous ticks marking each sniffle and foot shuffle and head turn, and gaze out the window, and deep breath.
She sees your life as it is... as it's happening each instant.
How many nights to you sit and think about that night eight years ago?
She's holding tonight on the tip of her golden finger.
