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Tired.
She got enough sleep last night.
Curling under the covers by half past nine.
Waking an hour after sun rise.
She wasn’t woken up in the gloom.
No baby brother rose her at dusk
no young adult sister stumbled in at half five with her keys in her hand, knocking hard at the door
slurring her words because ‘she forgot the time’
She’s out the door by twenty to nine.
It’s a two minute walk from her street to the gate
past the garden gnomes knocked over by the wind
past next door’s cat who shit on the bins.
Her late departure agitates her even though she’s never late
as she breezes past the students milling out the front
sneaking a cigarette to spark fire in their lungs
setting themselves alight to hope the smoke brings fun.
Her limbs are heavy
but it’s not from exhaustion
because her eyelids aren’t heavy they’re pinned open wide
breathing slow and difficult, pacing like the tide
as it crashes down on the beach and ravages the sand
as the wind picks up her hair and blows it in her face.
First lesson is something that’s the same
the same old lesson for the same old day
where the voices drill into her head like machines
brain clicks and whirrs, a little out of time with the rest
as they whine
about the homework they’ve just been set.
It’s a quick familiar routine
break is in the library
lunch is in toilet
bent over a sink
splashing her face in order to erase
the sleepiness that’s settled even though
she got enough sleep.
She’s got wild eyes that spark and fury
but the spark’s put out like a match dropped in the rain
when the droplets hiss on the smoldering wood
and crumble it into black ash on the pavement.
She’s cigarette smoke
pale grey
the color of the sky in the early morning
when you can taste rain in the air
and feel the cold in your bones
when the damp sticks to your hand, your hair
she’s blown away into the wind and then she’s not there.
Because she hates to admit she’s lost in the world
not just in the maze of the building
when her skin and her surroundings aren’t quite so clear
she has to have blind trust in people
and a blind trust in the solidness of the walls
that she slumps against when her knees give way
not from exhaustion though because she’s
not tired
she’s just cold, and a little sick, bent over the toilet seat
not going to vomit because she’s not ill
just breathing shallowly as her pulse pounds
keeping her head together until she jumps and bumps her knees on the toilet seat
when the bell rings and lunch is over and it’s time to face them again
and by them she means anyone with eyes
the eyes that can see her with sympathy and swim with pity
she doesn’t need
because she’s
just tired
except
she’s not tired
because she got enough sleep last night
Curling under the covers by half past nine.
Waking an hour after sun rise.
‘There must be more than this’
is the thought that ripples through her mind
a disappointed stone sinking in a stagnant pond
as she stares at herself in the mirror
practicing her smile
mouthing the words
‘I’m just tired.’
