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Small laughs and chatterings came to a halt,
As the moon shone brightly indicating the nighttime has come.
Even as a child I had difficulty in sleeping,
My imagination sore, amongst the stars and a mermaid I had become. 

Some nights are whirlwind of fiction,
While some are aimless staring in the blank canvas.
Should I start counting sheeps or try a breathing technique?
For even now sleep seems to me a mysterious anonymous.

Some nights are dark and scary,
The loneliness is overwhelming.
The unshut eyes and the night skies, 
The moonlight gives rise to myself in disguise.
Where am I and what am I doing?
I’m wide awake with these infinite thoughts-
Thoughts that my soul denies when the sun is shining.

Night time keeps surprising me- something new everyday, 
The uncertainty haunts me as I lay.
Will the waves of mantra or a holy song help me sleep?
Or hope for a sleepy air to just sweep?

If it rained tonight, would it sweep you to sleep?
Or would the pitter-patter sound more like an annoying beep?
Perhaps you are afraid of the dream,
Where the unspoken words dare to scream.

Sometimes the rhythm of the rain matches mine, sometimes it’s la la land in my mind,
Could make a list of things I could do to fall asleep tonight.
Reality hits you hard when it’s dark indeed,
Do you also feel the same before the morning light?

There are days when i prefer night to day,
Where the music never fails to make me sway.
Some days I hear my brain cells say-
Let’s dig up a memory from the past and play it on replay.
And smoke away the aesthetic present in the rims of an ashtray. 

The 2 AM thoughts keep me alive-it bridges me to accept the horrors of life.
No limitations and no outcasts-
It’s the darkness that lets my light truly shine.
I don’t know if these make sense even a slight,
Well, at last I’m always wondering about the secret of nighttime.

 -Amshu Upreti and Aryama Upadhyaya