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Rosemary Esehagu

Rosemary Esehagu was born in Lagos, Nigeria. She earned her BA in Psychology from Williams College. She is the author of the forthcoming novel The Looming Fog. In her spare time, she likes to get inside people's minds and tweeze out their aches and discomfort.

THE NIGHT IS CRYING

The night is crying.

She is jealous, she feels neglected.

For the day, you wake up so eagerly.

For the day, you kill your sleep.

For the day, you work your body to sweat,

working like a slave to please her.

But the night, who seeks to soothe you,

to remind you that you are worth more than a slave,

to rest your mind and body, to delight your eyes,

you ignore her—you don’t feel the air she’d made cool for you,

you don’t see her clothes of stars, chosen just for you,

you don’t notice the world, which she has made silent for you,

in awe of you

and so you could speak, so you could be heard.

Instead, you come back to her used, wasted, deafened, muted.

You come back to her drunk with the weariness of the day.

Even your sweat reeks of the day’s mist of deception.

Your hand's roughness speaks of the coldness in your heart.

Poor night, you come back to her and you sleep, useless,

wasting time, wasting moments.

You sleep trying to capture the day as you wish she could be.

At the day’s command, you kill your sleep again, to be with her, your master.

All her bitterness once congested,

then finally fall in little droplets, trying to touch you—to reach you.

She is crying. Don’t you see?

But you run away, you hide,

afraid of your own comfort.

Don’t ignore her, but shower yourself in her embrace.

Listen. Listen. Listen.

She wants you, she cries over you.