The Unobserved State

​"The clock has struck three, the coffee is cold, and the shadows are beginning to speak. Welcome back to the desk of The Night Writer, where the stories are brewed in the dark."

​I am alone in this room, and now I am not performing.
I have stopped holding my stomach in to look thinner.
I have stopped adjusting my face to look kinder or more alert.
I am slumped in a chair, my posture is poor,
and I am making a sound with my throat that is neither a song nor a word.

​When no one is watching, I do not care about being perceived.
I am not "The Night Writer" or a parent or a citizen.
I am a body that is tired of the effort of standing straight.
I bite the skin around my fingernails until they bleed.
I stare at the corner of the ceiling for eleven minutes
because I do not have to prove that I am being productive.

​The self I show to you is a construction of habits designed to keep us both comfortable.

I use specific words to make you think I am intelligent.
I smile at the correct intervals so you do not think I am angry.
But here, in the silence, I am neither intelligent nor angry.
I am a collection of physical needs and repetitive motions.

​I am the way I pick at my own flaws in the mirror.
I am the way I talk to myself out loud, repeating old arguments I lost.
I am the person who eats standing up because the effort of a plate feels like a lie.

This is not a dark secret or a hidden depth.
It is simply the biological reality of being alive
without the pressure of an audience.

​I am most myself when I am doing nothing for anyone else.
I am small, and unkempt, and entirely unimportant.
I am here, and I am not trying.

"Daylight is coming to claim the quiet, but these words stay with you. If you enjoyed this journey into the midnight hours, leave a heart or a tip to keep the candles burning. Sleep well—if you can. — The Night Writer."