The Night Routine

By Madhumita Patil

A gaping pit, a heart caged in a vacuum,

As you wait for it to devour you completely,

As you wait for the pain to eventually subside,

As you die a slow but exhausting death inside,

As you live to see a tomorrow that might hurt less,

As you curl up in bed with the thoughts that keep plaguing your mind,

As the moments you lived with a little less pain are played in loop,

As you pray that maybe tonight you wouldn’t dream of those,

As you feel the clock ticking in the silence of the darker night,

As you try to organize all that’s going on in your head,

As you find yourself getting further lost in the dark,

As you stare at the neon stars stuck on your roof,

And wish one of them to be a shooting star,

Just so you might wish upon it.

As you continue to wonder what went wrong,

As you think which butterfly flapped its wings and why,

And why the events cascaded as they did.

As you finish the last drop of energy left in your tired, fragile body,

The night gets to you, and you fall asleep.

Everyone has a way of life, for now, this is mine.

By Madhumita Patil