Nightlife

Who am I from aside? To watch the world spinning by? Cheering faces going places, taking life for what it is. They go around, hand in hand, spinning round in courtyards grand. Altogether, they and them, the sounds I hear of cheerful men.

To watch from a distance, is this my existence, to engage with the world in only the past tense? Because that's not my home and this isn't me. I embrace who I am and my own understanding. I know what it means for them to be happy. They spin with joy so long as there's sun. When there's light shining down, they know only fun.

But who is still dancing when the night does come? When the courtyard empties, is it home to anyone? Where do people go when the day turns dark? What smiles do they wear without others to see? Some go to partners or children or kin. Others stay alone or long to sleep in.

When they close their eyes their dreams set them free. While I am free to roam the night. To courtyards I go, to homes I don't know. I see shining eyes between the shadows. I see kind souls who know this is life. When the others are gone the world comes alive. The air is filled with deep discussion. The air is stilled without a sound. This is what makes the night so profound.

When others are dreaming of who they should be, when faces in mirrors are strangers to flee. When thoughts creep in they must suppress to keep their world from falling to mess. They were happy, truly, in the day. When surrounded by faces who knew what to say. But when they are left to the silence of thought, they feel the full weight of the life they have wrought.

Those who cry freely know what it means to be happy. But those who hide scars find solace only in stars. So they sleep through the night and never know peace.

Images fading away to time. Youth slipping by with each mutter of "fine" till the day finally comes to say their goodbye. Everything they know they shall leave behind. To their dreams they shall go, where they know the truth. But the only truth of those who sleep through the night is that the faces they knew were never right.

For in the dark we need no mask. We are united in common task. To look to the stars for some understanding. To know that dreams must all have an ending. When I ask you how you are and you tell me your trouble, that makes finding joy so much less of a struggle. To know you shed tears in the light of the day gives us the courage to go our own way.

We know there's no truth to the lives that surround. That within each mind is a common sound. Repression, oppression, a common depression, people living without ever asking the question. Do the smiles they wear give them their life? Do their bodies, so fair, give solace to their mind? Do riches to share give peace to their heart? For when the night comes, they don't know how to dare.