In the night

In The shadows In the shadows the monsters creep They shuffle around and don't make a peep Hidden in closets and under your bed The monster won't stop creeping until you are dead You close your eyes to chase shadows away Even if you close your eyes doesn't mean there gone The monsters still creep on, just beyond I've always liked the night better than the day. The night has a way of making me feel safe, strange isn't it, the night is we're most crimes are committed. I like walking on the sidewalk with no one in sight, to feel the cool air brush against my face as I fix my earphones so that I can hear my favorite song play. The feeling of isolation is like an island surrounded by the ocean cut off from the rest of the world. Sometimes I just want to be alone with my thoughts, to collect myself in the grace of the moonlight. In the night I am invisible, just an unknown passer-byer going about my business. Sometimes I will walk for miles going to places that I've never been before, I don't do it often. I generally stay in familiar places to see familiar faces, everyone comes out at the same time they did the night before. The corner store man closes his shop at exactly 11:47. His face is fat and so is his body, he usually wears sweaters and a cap. Next is the blond haired lady who works at the bank, she marches down the sidewalk in her pointy red heels and her fake pearl necklace. Her nose points out and she walks at a fast pace. Strange,her shift ended ten minutes early today, it's 11:50. The old lady comes out of her apartment smoking a cigarette. Her grey hair is matted on her head and her skin wrinkles over. She looks at me, I don't talk to the people I see on my walks, I just observe them. She sits on the stairs and stares out to the sky, probably thinking about the good old days when she was young. I tend to make up stories for the people I see. I make them good guys, bad guys, whatever my head can come up with. The group of boys comes out at 1:00am. They walk around and chill out at parks exchanging cigarettes. Cigarettes have become the smell of the night for me. The boys laugh and ride their skateboards around, sometimes I want to join in with them however I never do. The members in the group of boys changed today, the short one is here . He doesn't come everyday and does not fit in. He is probably a well-off boy who comes to hang out with them when he wants to feel rebellious. I know he is well-off because his shoes are new and his clothes fit. The other boys shoes are dirty or worn out and their clothes are handed-down from their fathers or older brothers. They stay there in the park for about an hour then leave, leaving behind their bottles and cigarette buds. When the short one is here he is the last to leave. He waits for his 'friends' to go home then heads in the other direction. He goes to the subway station and heads towards the bathroom. He changes his clothes and puts the ones smelling of cigarette smoke in his backpack. Can't have mommy and daddy getting suspicious of where he was. He pulls out his subway card,beeps it, then off he goes back to his happy little life. The city worker comes to clean up the park, I can anticipate his every movement, starts off at the north side of the park, makes his way to the west, then the middle, to the east then last the south side. He puts his hand on his head to wipe away the sweat and looks at the mess the group of boys made. He cleans it up and takes off his gloves. Shifts over. Sometimes I see him here with his girlfriend. His girlfriend is a plain looking lady, no astounding features, young, wears long skirts and cardigans. Her hair is in a neat little bun. Mama says you can tell a lot about a person based on their hair. Neat people had neat hair messy people had messy hair. She placed people in these little categories. I think it's the opposite. The city worker and his girlfriend take strolls around the park hand in hand.I like to imagine that they are Romeo and Juliet only being able to see each at night. I often wonder what they talk about, most likely their day, family etc… When it's time to go they give each other a hug and a kiss then the city worker walks his girlfriend home. He must smell bad from picking up garbage, she probably doesn't mind, I heard the saying that love is blind maybe it's nose blind too. Lastly the few who remain outside in the night are the drunks. They stagger on their way home holding a bottle in one hand and their dignity in the other. One man got a promotion the other got a demotion , baggy pants man's wife left him and the man in the suit is expecting a child. Strangely we drink on different occasions the happy and the sad. For me, watching the drunks is like watching a circus there amusing different characters. Once the show is over I head home. I live in a regular apartment, there's stairs at the front of the building with black railings, the windows have a French design and black bars over it. There are bushes near the side of the stairs and the front doors are black. The building looks good on the outside and ugly on the inside, like most people. In the lobby the waiting couches are stained and when you sit down you can feel the springs in the sofa. The carpets are worn out from the many people who walked over it. It always smells like heavily scented perfume in the lobby; must be there to deter people from loitering since the smell can cause headaches if you stay there too long. There's no one at the front desk, good. Usually if someone was there I would have to sneak back in. The elevators are creaky and from the speaker's comes that annoying elevator music. I live on the fifth floor; there are nine in total. When I walk in the hallways I like to imagine that I am in a horror movie waiting for something to jump out and attack me. Luckily nothing ever happens. I reach my front door, luckily for me mama isn't home yet, she works late shifts at the hospital. The hallway is dark and quiet; well nothing can ever be quiet,I twist my key in the lock and the door opens. I take off my shoes and place them neatly at the left side of the door next to my mother's many pumps. Her shoes are neat, no scratches, no dirt, perfection and on the other hand my shoes look like thrash; a person's shoes define them. I head to my room and remove the evidence that I was outside. I put the sweatshirt and the jogging pants in my closet, change into my pjs, brush my teeth and finally lay in my bed. The bed welcomes me like an old friend. I turn on a lamp and take out my journal, to recount the tales of yesterday and today. After I am done I put my journal away in my nightstand, turn off the light and go to sleep. The morning sun rises, with it's bright colors of orange, red and yellow. I've heard that when you are in the countryside you can hear the birds sing, however I live in the city so I do not have the privilege of hearing the birds sing. Every morning I wake up to the sound of traffic, cars honking, people yelling. I start my day like all the days I lived before and brush my teeth first, take a shower and eat breakfast. I don't have much of an appetite in the morning so I just eat a banana. I place a bowl in the dishrack so that mama can think I ate more than just a banana. Lastly I get ready, it's not that difficult to choose what to wear since my options are limited. Sweatshirt or a sweatshirt, to be honest I am not that picky and couldn't care less what I wear. Mama, on the other hand, says that what a person wears helps others define them, although I agree with mama that others define you by your clothes, clothes don't define a person. I dislike school. The idea of students learning together is okay however I dislike what we learn. Not all of it though.