Hostel Room 214

Room 214 at 3 AM,

the fan rotates its slow permission to stay awake.

Through the wall, someone is laughing.

The laugh ends. The wall continues.

My assignment document has been open for four hours.

It contains the words: Introduction, Background, and Method.

The cursor blinks where the ideas should go.

I refresh something. Nothing is new.

The corridor outside smells of Maggi and almost-morning.

Twenty doors, twenty people, twenty versions

of this same specific quiet,

each believing they are the only one still up.

I know the ceiling well now.

The crack that looks like a river from the wrong angle.

The light fitting that was never centered,

hung by someone who was also probably tired.

This is not unhappiness.

This is the hour that does not belong to anyone,

that exists between the day you planned

and the morning you will wake into,

holding only the small fact

that you are here,

that this is the room,

that the cursor is still blinking,

and there is still time.