There is a particular kind of tiredness
that sleep cannot touch.
It lives beneath the marrow,
behind the eyes,
in the small, mechanical rooms
where the body keeps its oldest debts.
Eight hours. Ten. Twelve.
The sun goes down
and comes back wearing a different face,
and still the exhaustion remains—
a tenant that pays no rent,
eats everything in the cupboards,
and leaves the lights on
in every room of the mind.
Some mornings,
the bed feels less like a place to rest
than a country
with no border crossings.
A soft, white wilderness
where nothing is demanded,
where the clocks cannot find a pulse
to drag into the day.
Just sleep.
Not dreams.
Not oblivion dressed up as poetry.
Just the absence
of having to be a person
for a little while.
But there is a wheel.
There is always a wheel.
Small feet against a spinning floor.
A heart beating like a fist
against a locked door.
Run.
Run.
Run.
The wheel turns faithfully
beneath the little body,
a private universe
with no horizon.
And look—
the scenery never changes.
The same unfinished project
growing mould in the corner.
The same schoolwork
multiplying like something
that feeds on neglect.
The same hobbies,
once bright as stolen treasure,
now gathering dust
like abandoned instruments
in a dead civilisation.
The same ambitions
with their little paper crowns,
waiting to be worn
by someone better.
Someone cleverer.
Someone who can make a life
out of the raw materials
that seem to turn, in these hands,
into nothing but more work.
There must be a finish line somewhere.
Surely.
A door with a handle.
A summit.
A certificate.
A photograph in which the face
finally looks like the person
who was meant to inhabit it.
Something.
Anything.
But the wheel keeps spinning,
and the body keeps running,
and the distance between
trying and becoming
stretches like a road
drawn by a dishonest cartographer.
There are things that should be moving.
A name toward its rightful shape.
A body toward the mirror
without that old, familiar estrangement.
A life toward something
that resembles a life.
The future sits behind glass,
wearing the outline
of a man not yet fully arrived.
And every day is another form
to complete in triplicate,
another waiting room,
another bureaucratic little god
asking for proof
that the person seeking entry
is, in fact, himself.
How exhausting
to have to become yourself
through paperwork, patience,
and the slow negotiation
with a world that mistakes waiting
for a reasonable thing to ask.
How exhausting
to want something so ordinary
and have it feel like a pilgrimage.
And the friends—
God, the friends.
There are people to hold together,
messages to answer,
sorrow to sit beside
until it becomes less sharp.
There are little fires
in other people\'s houses,
and somehow the hands
keep reaching for water
even when the well is dry.
Be useful.
Be gentle.
Be present.
Be the person who knows what to say,
who remembers the details,
who notices when the laughter
has developed a hairline fracture.
But what happens
when the keeper of the lantern
can no longer see the path?
What happens
when the hands that carry everyone
begin to shake beneath the weight?
There is no applause
for the quiet collapse
of a person who still replies,
still makes the joke,
still asks whether everyone got home.
The world is terribly good
at mistaking endurance for abundance.
It sees the wheel turning
and assumes the animal
must have somewhere to go.
And then there is the mirror.
That cold little courtroom
where the face stands trial
for the crime of being a face.
The skin.
The angles.
The shape of the body
that never seems to have received
the correct instructions.
Every photograph
another exhibit.
Every reflection
another expert witness
with an opinion nobody requested.
There is always something to correct.
Something to improve.
Something that might finally become enough
if only enough hours
could be fed into the machine.
So the wheel spins.
For grades.
For art.
For the body.
For the name.
For the friends.
For the impossible arithmetic
of becoming a person
worth looking at
without immediately searching
for the flaws.
And the wheel spins.
And the wheel spins.
And the wheel spins.
Until even desire becomes exhausting.
Until the hobbies that once opened windows
feel like additional rooms to clean.
Until every unfinished thing
becomes a little gravestone
with the same inscription:
could have been good at this.
could have been someone.
could have done more.
What a vicious little museum
the mind makes of potential.
All those selves behind the glass—
the artist,
the scholar,
the beautiful stranger,
the man who made it,
the friend who never ran out of tenderness—
each one preserved
at the precise moment
before disappointment.
Each one wearing the face
of a life that might have happened
if only the hands had been steadier,
the mind less crowded,
the body less tired.
And perhaps none of them
were ever meant to exist
all at once.
Perhaps the wheel is cruel
because it has convinced the animal
that movement is the same as progress.
Perhaps the world keeps selling
little golden medals
to people who can run the longest
without asking
where the road is going.
But knowing this
does not stop the wheel.
Knowing the machinery
does not loosen the gears.
A person can understand
exactly why they are exhausted
and still wake up exhausted.
Can name every monster
in the room
and still be afraid of the dark.
Can understand that a life
is not a competition
and still watch everyone else
cross imaginary finish lines
while standing in the same place,
holding the same unfinished self.
That is the maddening part.
Not simply being tired.
Being tired of being tired.
Being angry at the body
for needing rest,
then angry at the mind
for turning rest into guilt.
Lying still
and feeling the wheel
spinning somewhere inside the ribs.
Sleeping
and waking to discover
that even the night shift
has accomplished nothing.
Sometimes all that remains
is the animal
curled in the shavings,
eyes half-shut,
feet twitching
with the memory of running.
Even in sleep,
the little legs keep moving.
Even in sleep,
the body rehearses its captivity.
And somewhere beyond the cage,
the world is opening its doors.
Another morning.
Another list.
Another bright, indifferent day
asking what has been accomplished.
Nothing, the ledger says.
Nothing worth mentioning.
Nothing that can be held up
to the light
and made to resemble proof.
But the ledger is a cruel accountant.
It counts finished things
and never the cost of carrying them.
It counts the empty page
and not the hours spent
trying to make the first mark.
It counts the distance travelled
and not the weight
of the body that travelled it.
It counts the people helped
and not the hands
that trembled afterward.
It counts the man not yet arrived
and never the miles
already walked toward him.
Still, I know—
knowing does not make it easy.
The wheel is still turning.
The body is still tired.
The future is still behind glass,
and the mirror has not learned
to speak kindly.
There is no sudden sunrise
waiting in the final stanza.
No revelation
that transforms exhaustion
into gratitude.
Only this:
somewhere inside the cage,
a small animal
is allowed to stop running
for the length of a breath.
The wheel slows.
The silence is strange.
Nothing is achieved.
Nothing is repaired.
No one awards a medal
for the magnificent accomplishment
of remaining still.
For one moment,
there is only a body
that has carried itself
through another impossible day.
A body that is tired.
A body that is frustrated.
A body that has not become
everything it wanted to be.
A body that, despite everything,
is here.
And for once,
the wheel can turn without it.
For once,
the little animal
does not have to chase
the horizon.
For once,
nothing is required
of the feet.
They are allowed
to be feet.
They are allowed
to be still.