Series 5｜Night Tea

Night tea is not meant to help you sleep.
It simply allows the day
to slowly come undone.

After the light has softened.
After notifications have fallen silent.
There is a stretch of emptiness
where the world finally stops asking anything of you.

The water boils again.
Its sound is lower than it was during the day.
As if to say:
you no longer need to keep up.

The cup feels heavier in your hands at night.
It is no longer light,
and it does not need to be forgiving.
It simply rests there quietly,
holding everything
the day has not yet let go of.

This is not a tea meant for thinking.
You do not look back,
and you do not move forward.
You do not arrange your words,
or sort through your feelings.
You simply allow
this small piece of night
to settle.

Night tea does not try to comfort you.
It does not ask you to make peace with anything.
It only sits with you,
in that thin band of darkness
between today and tomorrow.

You drink slowly,
not to enter calm,
but because calm
has already gathered around you.

There is no explanation.
No conclusion.
Only steam fading away,
and the night
moving inch by inch
through the window.

In this brief moment,
you do not need to be clear-headed.
You do not need to know your direction.
You do not need to be anyone at all.

You are simply sitting here.
The tea is slowly cooling.