There's an art to being awake during the still hours of the night. Your eyes grow wide in the dark, attuned to the gentle thrumming of the world around you, with all its secrets unlocked and laid bare. It's its own kind of language that way; things that are hidden away in the light are unmuzzled as the stars come out. The sounds are horrific and otherworldly: a metaphysical siren song of longing and despair and anxiety and rage while stories told in the stars unfurl themselves in the dark. The story of everything is there if you know how to read words composed of stardust.
The old gods are restless. Primordial. They communicate in the slow blinks of migratory birds. In the dew that gathers in the creases of dead leaves. In the angry, unchanging slap of black waves on black rock. In the uneasy thoughts that pin you to your bed if you're unlucky enough to wake when the pantheon convenes. In the sensation of a weight on your chest and the taste of wet earth in your mouth. In the sweat that pools in the crease of your elbow and the way you can feel your pulse in your fingertips.
In these lonely hours, it's best to surrender to it all. In the before times, these gods were revered with wine and song and sacrifice. Now they are forgotten, and they demand to be remunerated. They seek devotion. Adoration. Atonement. They lash their grievances to cryptic Nightjar lullabies and let them loose into the deep night where they can be discovered by those who have learned how to listen.
Give your regrets to the ground. Your body to the water. The rain has such small, nimble hands.
Release your fear into the heavens and be penitent.
Participating in this still darkness means that you've accepted all that comes with it. Weigh your regrets against your potential. The old gods existed before you were there to witness them and will remain long after you've been claimed by the concussive benevolence of the earth.
Yield to this. To them. Feel the earth give way in the dark so that all will be still again.
-- Stacey Harris (she/her) can't decide whether she's a Chicagoan or a New Orleanian. She's a mother, a wife, a potty mouth, a horse girl, a copywriter, and a service industry Swiss Army knife. She's been published in Thread Litmag and Reverie Magazine and her younger self is absolutely thrilled by this. She can be found on instagram @staceyjoy and on twitter @curvesandnerves