The Day That Changed My Night

it was a Tuesday, or maybe not, the days don't matter when you've forgotten how to count. I was sitting in a corner bar where the lights flickered like old memories trying to come back but not quite making it. the jukebox played a song that meant nothing to me. and then everything. it was the kind of moment you don't see coming, a car crash in slow motion or the way a woman leaves with only half a glance and takes the whole room with her. I lit another cigarette. watched the smoke rise like fading dreams, powerful, powerless, merging together in that shapeless way only regret can manage. someone laughed in the back— a big, stupid laugh— and I remembered my father. his voice a thunderstorm, his fists like summer hail. the memories poured in, uninvited, like strangers at a wake. the night swallowed me whole, and I let it. because sometimes the dark is all you've got, and it's better to sit with it than fight. the day changed nothing, but the night— it remembered everything.