The sun creeps up and floods
the valley between walls and beds,
and the creatures that
reside within, awake
with warmth and light.

Creatures, at first docile,
confined
in the walls, locked in, afraid
of the menace of the lands
Tolerating, meditating, venting,
Inching insiduosly towards
The end of the day.

But as the sun begins to drop
Towards the west once again,
The creatures begin
to metamorphise, they
transform without a full moon, they
grow claws, they
grow fangs, they
grow scales;
a thirst for blood
dissolved in drool, dripping
down onto the ground, hungry
for a new prey.

Hungry for novelty.

Hunting for change, they
gather scraps and avoid
the gaze of the creatures
around them, for, the creatures
around them are all one
of them and thus
they dance with their
menacing paws and
clumsy claws on the
delicate fringes
of cannibalism.

But the night has only just begun.

The pull of the sun moving
across the sky is somehow
outmatched by
its pull from
behind the planet,
out of sight,
below the horizon.

As the night glides on
and the abyss feels closer,
most of the monsters doze off
out of fear.

The fortunate few, however,
feel relieved having
survived one
of the two nights that
occur every night.

The first one, of
scavenge, survival and selfish monotony.

The second, of
catharsis, calm, and other-worldly melodies.

Melodies that mellow the most
menacing of monsters.
melodies that gift might
to the meekest of men.

An energy born out of pure perception,
an entity palpable nonetheless.

The second night, a second wave,
a secret shared by the fortunate few
who dared stay up.

In spite of tomorrow.

-Abdullah Alam