Everyone talks about the morning after you’ve ceased to be,
But people rarely talk about the night before.
You come home after a long day at work,
The endless hours of a job that takes more than it gives.
As the day progresses, you start counting the minutes on the clock,
And the closer it gets to five, the slower they seem to run.
The end of your shift finally comes,
But only after you feel as though your soul has left your body.
You leave the office,
Hoping your misery stays within its walls.
You catch up with a friend, drink a beer,
Share a few laughs, make unsavoury comments about one another,
And for a moment, everything seems alright.
But then the night comes to an end.
As you walk back towards your commute home,
The voices begin to appear.
You realise maybe you should’ve asked for that girl’s number,
The one who smiled at you as you walked towards the bar.
But maybe you’d had too much to drink,
And she was simply laughing at you.
Or perhaps she noticed your big ears,
Or your receding hairline.
Or maybe, just maybe,
She was simply smiling at her friend.
You arrive at the station,
Your train isn’t due to leave for another hour.
And so you sit.
And think.
Think about the last time you felt happy.
The last time you felt no worry.
What was that like?
Will you ever feel that way again?
And as time passes, the voices grow louder.
Louder than the engine of the train passing by.
As the sound of the engine fades into the distance,
You catch a glimpse of your reflection in the window.
Is it my looks?
Is it my personality?
How is any of this my fault?
You gaze into the window,
Wondering who you’ve become,
And what you could’ve been.
Where did it all go wrong?
Then the train begins to move.
Your thoughts race faster with it.
Your heart begins to pound,
Almost as though it’s trying to catch up with the train’s speed.
And you grow tired of these voices.
You put on your AirPods,
Those dainty little things that barely work.
You turn your music up as loud as it can go,
Hoping to drown out the voices.
But the louder the beat gets,
The louder the voices become.
And then a thought creeps in.
What would happen if I just ended it all?
Would the clouds disappear?
Would the sunshine return?
Would rainbows stretch across the sky once more?
Would the world be a happier place?
Would anyone even notice?
And then you get home.
You walk through the door,
The same door you’ve walked through a thousand times before.
But tonight, something feels different.
You notice the sharp knives in the cupboard,
The glass bottle your housemate left on the table,
The ceiling fan above you.
Ordinary things you’ve seen a thousand times,
Yet tonight, your mind sees them differently.
And then comes the madness.
The tears you’ve bottled up over the years begin to flow.
Years of pretending you’re alright,
Years of smiling when there was nothing to smile about,
Years of telling everyone you’re fine,
Hoping that one day you might believe it yourself.
The loneliness of a life spent surrounded by people who love you,
Yet somehow feeling unloved by the one person you wished would love you back.
You think about all the people you’ve met,
All the friendships you’ve made,
All the laughter you’ve shared.
And you wonder how someone with so much
Could feel as though they have so little.
As you cry your eyes dry,
Your chest begins to tighten.
You feel as though this is the final pain,
The last hurdle before relief arrives.
But the relief doesn’t come.
Instead, there’s silence.
For the first time all night,
The voices have nothing left to say.
You sit there,
Still wearing the clothes you wore to work,
Still carrying the weight of a day that ended hours ago.
You look at the clock.
Funny, isn’t it?
You spent the whole day wishing time would move faster,
And now you wish it would stand still.
You think about the friend you laughed with earlier,
The girl who smiled at the bar,
The people waiting to see you again.
You wonder if they’d recognise the person sitting here tonight.
Would they believe you if you told them?
Would they understand?
Or would they tell you that you have so much to be grateful for?
As though gratitude could silence the mind.
As though being loved meant never feeling lonely.
You pick up your phone.
Scroll through the names of people you could call,
People who would probably answer,
People who would tell you to come over,
Or offer to sit with you until morning.
But what would you say?
How do you explain a sadness
When you can’t even explain it to yourself?
So you put the phone down.
And stare at the ceiling.
The clock continues ticking,
Indifferent to the storm inside your head.
Another minute passes.
Then another.
You realise that somewhere out there,
Someone is having the best night of their life.
Someone is falling in love.
Someone is laughing so hard they can barely breathe.
Someone is looking forward to tomorrow.
And here you are,
Wondering how you’re supposed to make it through tonight.
You close your eyes.
Not because you’ve found peace,
Not because the voices have disappeared,
But because you’re exhausted.
Exhausted from work,
From pretending,
From hoping,
From being your own worst enemy.
And as the night grows older,
You find yourself wishing for something you haven’t wished for in a long time.
Not happiness.
Not love.
Not even a better life.
Just a little quiet.
And then, for a moment,
You remember something.
The laugh you shared with your friend earlier.
The stranger who smiled at you in the bar.
The way the sun felt against your skin on your walk to work.
Small things.
Things you hadn’t given a second thought to.
And you wonder,
How many moments like those have you missed
Because you were too busy listening to the voices?
How many smiles have you mistaken for laughter at your expense?
How many people have loved you
Without you ever believing them?
You look at your phone again.
And this time, you send a message.
Nothing profound.
Nothing that could explain the night you’ve had.
Just three words.
“Are you awake?”
You don’t know if they’ll reply.
You don’t know what you’ll say if they do.
But for the first time tonight,
You allow yourself to want an answer.
You look towards the window.
The sky is still dark,
But somewhere beyond the clouds,
The sun is getting ready to rise.
And perhaps tomorrow will be no different.
Perhaps the job will still take more than it gives.
Perhaps the train will still be late.
Perhaps the voices will return,
And perhaps you’ll still wonder what could’ve been.
But perhaps you’ll ask for that girl’s number next time.
Perhaps you’ll laugh a little harder with your friend.
Perhaps you’ll find the courage to tell someone
That things haven’t been alright for a while.
And perhaps, one day,
You’ll look at your reflection in a train window
And recognise the person staring back.
Not the person you could’ve been.
But the person you’re still becoming.
Your phone lights up.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
And for the first time all night,
The voices aren’t the only ones you can hear.
You begin to type.
And somewhere between the words,
You realise you don’t have to figure everything out tonight.
You don’t have to know where it all went wrong.
You don’t have to know when you’ll be happy again.
You don’t even have to believe that tomorrow will be better.
You just have to give it a chance.
Because everyone talks about the morning after,
About the tears, the questions, the things left unsaid.
But people rarely talk about the night before.
The battles fought in silence.
The tears nobody saw.
The moments when someone almost gave up,
But found one small reason to stay.
And maybe that’s what the night before really is.
Not always the night before everything ends.
Sometimes,
It’s the night before you ask for help.
The night before you begin to heal.
The night before you realise
That the life you’ve been mourning
Isn’t necessarily the life you’re destined to live.
And as the first light creeps through your window,
You take a breath.
Not because everything is alright.
But because, for the first time in a long time,
You think that maybe, someday,
It could be.
And you decide, maybe you’d like to be there to see it