Stranger of the Night

We argued again. 

I lived in my little snow globe of a world just fine, but you had to knock it down from the shelf and giggle as the glass shattered and the sparkles flowed out with my tears. 

Tonight, I was done with being sad. I was done with being sorry. 

The night is my friend. I slip out just as the city lights turn on and wander down the little painted streets with their flower baskets and soft yellow lamps, afraid I’m lost and afraid I’m not. 

Noctivagant. One who wanders in the night. That was who I became last summer, the night I snuck out to hear the crickets chirp under the moonlight. 

It’s late. No one outside but an occasional stray car that passes, headlights cutting through the night, shining home. 

Do I even have a home? 

But the night was my home. It was where the darkness isn’t cold but soft, shapeless, like a gentle finger that blends out everything around me and smoothens all the jagged angles of the world, like a curtain that falls softly and dims all the shouts and feelings that blind me like the dazzling sun. In the night, I feel raw and reborn. 

My footsteps trace their way to the old pier, and I gaze out at the breathing ocean, calm and rolling under the moon, no longer angry but at peace. Here is where I belong. 

The ocean wind blows through my hair and whispers my name. Noctivagant. One who wanders in the night. 

I was the same little girl who ran outside barefoot that summer again. I clambered onto the ferris wheel by the pier and sat in silence as it rose high above the city. Down below, everything was a blur of neon and black where the lights met the ocean, and for a moment I was away. For a moment I was at peace, like a bird who spread her wings and flew away from the tears and the hurt, to this little island far away from the rest of this strange world. Here, everything was alright. I don’t belong anywhere in the daytime. But at night, the world was my home. 

Noctivagant. Me who wanders in the night.