There’s a sound that shouldn’t mean anything. It’s just birds. Just some sparrows or finches or whatever, fluttering around outside doing what birds have always done—singing in the morning. Most people hear it and smile. They stretch, yawn, maybe make coffee. Maybe they open a window and say something like “what a beautiful day.”
But to me, it’s a siren.
That chirping doesn’t sound like the beginning of a day. It sounds like the end of the night swallowing its own tail. It’s the sound that cuts through the residue of another bender—slicing through the thick air of a room that reeks of sweat, smoke, takeout containers, and broken intentions. It creeps in under the blinds, that faint grayish-blue light barely there, and suddenly the whole world feels off. Tilted. Too quiet and too loud at the same time.
Your mouth tastes like ash. You can’t remember if you ever ate. You’re dehydrated but too paranoid to drink water. Your heart is doing some jazz rhythm you never asked for, and your brain is spinning in a loop—same thoughts, same guilt, same cycle of rationalizations. You try to follow one to the end, but they’re all frayed and chewed up.
The birds keep chirping.
You check your phone. No texts. Too early. Or too late. You’re not sure anymore. The clock says 6:14 a.m. but it might as well say game over. Because there’s nothing left to do. The playlist stopped three hours ago. Everyone who was here is gone, or passed out, or pretending to be. And now it’s just you, in a room that used to feel alive but now feels like a mausoleum of bad decisions.
And the birds won’t shut up.
There’s a moment where you consider trying to sleep. You even crawl into bed. But your body is electric, muscles twitching like cables in a storm. Your eyes close for thirty seconds, maybe, but your mind doesn’t stop. It lurches forward, cycling through everything you’ve done, everything you said, what you spent, what you lost. You get up again, pace the room, stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror and wonder if you’ve always looked this hollow.
You can hear the neighbors now. Their showers. Their doors. Their kids getting ready for school. Their morning routines grinding into place. And all of it feels like another planet. You’re not a part of that world. You don’t even remember how to be.
You wonder if it’s too early to call the connect. You do the math in your head—how much cash you’ve got left, what excuse you’d give. Not because you want to keep going, but because the idea of stopping is worse. Because the moment you stop, all that empty space comes rushing in. And you know damn well that’s when the shame hits hardest.
But even if you did call, even if you re-upped and kept the night going into another day, the birds would still be there. Still chirping. Still reminding you that you’re out of sync with the rest of the world. That you’ve taken something beautiful and turned it into a trigger.
And that sound just keeps going.
Innocent. Mechanical. Relentless.
It doesn’t stop.
And neither do you.
Not yet.