An Open Letter

Dear Exhaustion,

Someone once remarked during a particularly prolific phase that my muse must be lounging, leaving her nail clippings in my plants, but I always knew it was you...lurking in doorways with a satisfied smirk on your face. I've waited all month for you to assail me at my desk as I slumped listlessly cracking the spines of various books, and then taking naps and awaking even more crinkled and unrecorded than before. I've heard you slamming the screen door at odd hours or pulling the springs in the window sash. I did wonder where you ran off to, but knowing we are not supposed to even know each other, I curtailed my questioning.

What are the consequences of excessive wakefulness? Incalculable, infirm of purpose, so I slept to seize the heart of things. Straining to hear, I could not pay attention until I sensed that you were here. Exhaustion, you lean in obtuse angles for merely a pair of hands, my hands, to let. Helplessly, I prepare with a morning constitutional, a pile of vitamins, ablution along with any other rituals I should have discarded long ago. I am prone, leaving the door unlocked, ajar.

Now I can fill in the darkness beyond the waxy daffodils, diagram the decussation of pyramids, but I won't push it beyond tomorrow afternoon...Then, you can be on your way, and I, will go about collecting a new pile of things for you to parcel and perfect.

Tired, but happy,
-J