Depends on the Night (fragments of a confession)

Two shots in, in a smoke-filled room,
the music sways like a promise half-kept.
She sits in shadow,
not hiding—just waiting
for the night to forget her name.

A man in the corner lights another cigarette
with hands that remember more than he says.
Their eyes catch—not collide—
soft recognition or maybe just the drink
playing games with memory.

She isn’t there to be touched.
She’s there to disappear,
to let the amber burn offer
just one hour
where the ache doesn't speak so loudly.

Her thoughts spiral,
back to a grandfather who adored her—
now a ghost of memory
she left behind in a country
she barely remembers.

She tried reaching her nephew,
who slipped into the beyond
on a night too heavy with haze
to know what was choice and what was chance.

But it was her mother who arrived—
not in form,
but wings pressed against the window screen,
a butterfly visitor,
staying only long enough to say: I see you.

Grief sits beside her,
not sharp, but familiar.
Some deaths happen in spirit,
others in truth—
when the version of someone you loved
was only ever who you hoped they were.

Four shots in,
the music dims and smoke lingers.
He leans in, eyes tired but open.

“Who do you miss the most?”

She exhales slow,
her voice a whisper curling in the air—
“It depends on the night.”

And some nights,
the only one listening
is the dark itself.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai