question. what is exhaustion?
answer. it is headaches that live between your eyes and that are aided by the brightness of the television you cannot look away from. it is limbs that feel like miniature giants you're thinly attached to. it is bad breath and ugliness, dirty hair and the captivity of doing nothing and wishing to do nothing. its hands against dry faces, tears that refuse to smoothly slide down as you wish them to no matter how hard you push. its playing make believe when you're alone and making yourself think that you can be all of these in the future, if you really want to. its wishing that you could just wash away, and feel your skin erode off of your bones, into clay that will melt into the floor for centuries until it is dug up and broken and adam has enough ribs and wouldn't mind if one was ripped away. its eating when you're not hungry and pushing your fingers into your stomach in the shower, demanding it to tell you why it has grown to be such a monster. it is sitting in warm spots so your body sweats away its impurities and yawning without having to open your mouth. exhaustion is when you forget that the tangerine you toss is nonexistent, and then you peel and chew. it is missing the voice of your mother and when she tells you that you look like her, sound like her. it is remembering that you have barely existed in her image but you share more than you do not share. it is yearning for those who will never truly want you and denying yourself the truth of this. exhaustion is not knowing what you truly want, but pausing for just a moment and pushing forward anyway. its not having a plan.
it isn't wanting to die, never something so trivial and simple. its wishing you were perfectly in place. and that you've had a place to begin with. its realizing that you will always loathe the past versions of yourself. that your own existence is just a phase that you must blur through. its seeping into the couch and pretending you don't hear your name being called, turning over to sleep more deeply, to dream again and remember. its never easy. and it sometimes burns, and slices you cleanly and lines the parts of you side by side just to mush you back together, only this time you're more discombobulated than you were before. when you tell it that you can't that you won't and that you're done, it pulls you closer and weeps with you so that you feel its love. it mirrors your behavior, heaving when you heave, releasing when you release. it screams when you scream, and when you start to claw at yourself because there is nothing left, it saves you. it clings to your side and sighs in content, happy with what it has made. its hands wrap around your waist and rock you side to side, its empty face in your neck. although you don't always agree, it does listen to you when you tell it you want to rest. it lends its shoulder to you, a pillow to lie on when you are weary (and this is always.) it never leaves you. it is a friend.
