3 AM

Written By Sulaah Bien-Aime

It’s 3 AM Like clockwork, she wakes up at this time. This is her time. This is her party time, this is her time to romanticize, what could be, what could have been, and what will never be, and then there are the regrets. I suppose her death will not be easy. Those final hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds regret and euphoria will be her going away party. So what do you do in the meantime?

She gets up and looks around her. The place is a chaotic organization trying hard, hanging by a thread organization, but it’s not without effort. The effort is efforting, but she is fighting. It’s 3 AM, and she reaches for the cheap bottle of wine that most likely saved her life and other, but she is just kidding. Maybe or perhaps not. 3 AM is her time, the time when she can start writing shit like this. Shit that will make you think she is angry. It feels good to take a swig of that large bottle of cheap wine. But I wonder, is it really cheap wine? Did he/she/it/they/them not make it to the top of the food chain of popularity? Is that this wine’s call to fame? Bottom shelf, with only people with limited means who want to feel fancy can say, “hey, I have wine.” Those are some things she wonders about at 3 a.m.

It’s 3 AM. She wishes this time could stand still. Perhaps, it could be on a loop. Like your favorite YouTube playlist. You know that loop where you were at your best or so you thought. Time has moved on, and occurrences have moved on, but the playlist is like a loop. Perhaps, there is a hidden message there-in that playlist. This playlist is her content place. Actually, happy place. She gets to reminisce about what she could have been, what she had done, and what will happen and there is the deferred dream. DOT.DOT.DOT. She wonders did all the greats go through this at 3 AM. Creating their best and worst and the in-between all at the same time?

It’s 3 a.m., and she wishes the wine wasn’t ending. It was the time to start waking up. Functioning much? More like coping, existing with small breaths of exhaling and inhaling. She was about to delete this-what shall we call it MUSING. She wanted to hold on to this time. 3 AM, but reality was looming. I was so caught up in the vortex and my playlist was interrupted, so my thoughts are interrupted and I’m in another playlist. Not sure I want to be here. The irony of this playlist is that it hits differently when it’s 3 p.m., or is that a paradox? I don’t know. Who wants to be fancy with lingo when it’s 3 a.m? This time is to be free. The time to party. The time to reminisce on what could have been, would have been, what will be and then there are the regrets. It’s 3 AM. I was going to end you here, but you want more. So, I will continue to write even though it is now 4:19 and we are heading into that state of mind of forced normalcy. This playlist is messing with me, but wants me to stay in a 3 AM state of mind. So, we will wait.

I know why 3 AM is still here. It’s sip, sip. Although one mini swig will end this moment. She is dragging it. The chaotic, organized but not organized mess. This effort of efforting is calling her back to a loop of endless torture. 3 AM, you are funny, you switched up the playlist and released me slowly. So, I’m going to enjoy this moment of release, because today, I am enjoying 3 AM. I wrote a full article where I was fully and completely invested in my thoughts, my ideas, and creativity and so that means that I woke the fuck up literally, and figuratively.