if we believe, in the night we trust
because the night belongs to lovers
because the night belongs to love1

the night is the only thing that belongs to me. and willfully, i belong to it.

i have beside me a cup of tea, a glass tea pot where chinese green tea leaves soak and emit the essence i’m feeding on, which i’m feeding my soul. my soul relaxes. the night is safe, the night is quiet, the night is loud but only in my head. i can be whoever i want. you can come sit beside me and i will hold your hand and smile at you and you will think, “what a normal, happy girl.”

because the night belongs to me, and i am with myself— as i am, no masks, no disguises— i can be free. i can be well. i can be well and okay with all the things i am and all the things i am not— the ugly and the beautiful. and i can miss. i can miss. i can melt into the longing for pieces i have left behind somewhere, with someone. i can miss.

almost a month ago, i was laying on my friend’s bed. her nightlight was glowing blue magic towards us and illuminating the otherwise cream-colored room in the hues of what could have been a possible coming-of-age movie to a third person. but we are the least likely people to be made main characters in such a movie— our interests were mundane and childish, we thought too much about things people naturally tend to not care about and we sat in the blue hues of a nightlight and felt things in our hearts. we didn’t go out to clubs when we should have (probably because when else would we?), we didn’t seek the blues of the society (immersed in our own blue), we simply sat with ourselves and marinated in the miseries of our lives and we belonged to each other and the blues of the light. and we belonged to the night.

as we journey from sun to sun
all the dreams i waited so long for
our flight tonight so long, so long
bye-bye, hey, hey, maybe 2

a week-long, morbidly hot and humid summer solo trip to delhi, 2024.

i went looking for the person i was in that city when i studied there. back then i wasn’t doing well but i was proud and confident and i felt good in my skin about who i was. that city let me be, it’s as though delhi gave me temporary wings and told me “fly to heaven or hell, it doesn’t matter as long as you fly,” and i was free, free, free.

the worst and best parts of me were established in delhi, the city gave me the power. i couldn’t find who i was again but i found the bits of me that i had left behind— in friends, in places, in the air.

the moon was usually low back then in delhi, and so was it in june. it was almost like it wanted to touch the ground as much as we humans wanted to reach out and gather the moon in our embrace. of course, both the moon and us are way beyond each other’s reach. but what beauty there is, isn’t it? in dreaming, as you look at something you cannot attain. a loss of power but a feeling of contentment in the same loss.

i feel much like that at this moment. my tea is going cold, but patti smith sings in my ears that i have the power, the power to dream3. and i feel well, i feel well, i feel well. and the night belongs to me, to you, to us. to all who dream, to all who love. to all lovers, to all the love that is not romantic but all encompassing, to all lovers of love and friendship, the moon belongs to us.

we will come back some day now
but tonight on the wings of a dove
up above to the land of love 4

maybe we will meet again, her and i. we will. and maybe we will have one more night where i draw something mildly horrendous and my friend will like it enough to put it up in her room wall, give it a small zest of my personality. again. i think it’s wonderful to be liked, to be admired and tonight, as i sip my tea, i miss it. i miss being admired, i miss sitting and chatting and laughing into the 3 am hot and humid air of delhi as the air conditioning turns on and off. and i miss hearing from her, “prashasti, yaar. you’re so cool, yaar”, in that delicious hindi she speaks, and once more, i will stay silent, shy and unbelieving in the aftermath of the compliment and refrain from saying, “you’re biased.”

maybe one day, it will happen again.

patti smith lost her frederick but she says maybe they’ll meet again someday. so maybe someday i will also realize that losing is not the end, never. the love, where could it possibly go? even when the humans don’t exist, the love will.

the ceramics market, the busy road to the metro station, the little dirty alley i walked spiting dangers, they still remain. and so do i. the light, the wall, the city where we walked, the clouds that rained upon us once upon a time, the songs we sang, the ones we loved, they will remember. the night will remember. that is why we exist, that is why we do things, why there is meaning to life. because there will be things that will remember.

love is a banquet on which we feed 5

me and my friend, we aren’t distanced by spirits, we are distanced by geography. and although i wish tonight i could have been sitting on her bed again, bathing in the low blue light, craning my neck to look at her, squinting my eyes to make out her figure in the near-dark… it is not so bad to be back in my childhood home; working on my dearest desk, illuminated yellow with my lamp and my warm caring teapot. i am free, i have made friends with the universe, i am in kathmandu and i am in delhi all at once. i am free and so is my spirit.

we will meet again someday. maybe, we are meeting right at this moment, in spirit. whispering goodnights repeatedly as we attempt to sleep, talking until the early morning. goodnight, goodnight, goodnight. and it is all blue and dark and beautiful. the night is not long at all and we are alive. the world will remember, the night will. because we belong to it.

goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

next issue for ‘delhi, let me free’ will be coming soon!

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patti smith- because the night