I was in my twenties
when a friend asked me
if I wanted to be his 3 a.m. buddy
—one of the biggest compliments
anyone’s ever handed me.

Because a 3 a.m. buddy is someone
you trust with unfiltered
hours, way past the middle of
the night,
where everything is heightened:
sounds,
silence,
sensations,
emotions,
memories,
histories…
loneliness.

A 3 a.m. buddy knocks on your door,
red-blooded eyes in a hoodie, with
MSG-loaded snacks you didn’t ask for,
turning the TV on to play a show
nobody cares about, that
you pretend to watch anyway, or

stays sober while you’re only
two sips away from dissolving;
bravely makes silly moves on the
dance floor of the city’s most
pretentious club, so you can laugh
too hard at nothing
before
you resume crying, or

drags you out into the elevator,
messy hair, sweat-stained shirt and all,
down, down, down the empty lobby,
past the night security,
to a dim 24-hour street stall selling
steaming hot instant
noodles that taste like survival, or

sits with you on the dirty sidewalk,
bathed in the eerie orange streetlights,
next to the overloaded trash bin,
parked motorbikes, late-night taxi
queues, stray cats, no judgment, no
interrogation, no questions, just
a presence without expectations or
explanations, or

squats with you on the rooftop, waiting
for the sun to rise,
plastic spoons and cheap desserts
from the minimarket below your
apartment complex.

They don’t have the language yet, and
you don’t have the language yet, just
feelings spilling, leaking, gushing over
the edges.

These ordinary, mostly low-budget, half-asleep
moments, where your 3 a.m. buddy
holds themselves together
or pretends to,
so you don’t have to
perform,
so you can just

break

down.

So, yes, I told him,
I’ll be your 3 a.m. buddy.