My Lovely Genesis

It was nights like these that I treasured the most; when the mother in 4A put her children to sleep singing sweet lullabies, while the girl in 3B would carefully put the finishing touches on her lipstick like a composer placing the final notes on his symphony all while the sky above sang its goodnight song with sweet whispers of pink and orange that made lovers cry and poets dream. It was then that I would retreat to the fire escape outside my 18th floor apartment with a mug of coffee or tea and watch as part of the city would awake to the long night ahead while others retired to a peaceful slumber that provided a reverie from the bustle of the previous day.
Here I was able to become the woman I wanted to be without the restraints of my suffocating culture or the expectations of my boss or friends; I was simply a spectator of the night, which pleased me beyond all reason because the night had quickly become a dear friend of mine that one of those silent types that is never pushy but always around when you need them the most. Looking back I treasure that night in particular above all other nights because it was the night that I was completely free and uninhibited from the stress and constant questions that my life had become and was able to breathe in the freedom of anonymity that the darkness had brought.
No longer was I Mercedes, a twenty-something working girl in New York City, I was nothing and everything all wrapped together so tightly together that you could not be able to separate the two. The questions of why I always stood out amongst my peers would fight to enter in the stream of consciousness that flowed through my mind, but never could when I was in the presence of my dear companion who blocked all sources of fear and allowed me to be enveloped in the stillness of his goodnight kiss. My relationship with the night created a beautiful paradox that allowed me to lose my identity so that I was able to truly look at myself and figure out who I was.