I'll Try to Explain It

Deep breaths no longer combat mental exhaustion. Elisha needed to retreat. Mental decapitation, the hangman's joy reigned supreme. Who designed this? To work so much and rest so little and of course, those daily autonomous regimes. Tired, weary, and dreary, Elisha was a mixture of all three.

The morning alarm is the worst sound, like poison to her ears. The dreadful aide- memoire of the expectations of life placed upon her, expectations she did not bargain for. Elisha sits on the edge of the bed and juggles between crucial decisions. Slouching shoulders hold the agony of the forced interactions to come. Crossed legs are tense and stiff, regretting they even have to move, heavy from the weariness. The jab in Elisha's gut plays tango but not the kind you have fun with when you dance, rather a twisted discontentment, hanging in limbo.

Then there's the mind, where the bulk of the exhaustion lives, the kind that sleep has yet to permeate, the type that debilitates. Elisha believes it resembles a curveball machine. It releases the balls at an alarming rate, giving you no time to prepare and you must endanger yourself to knock them, dodge them, swerve them, catch them, all in an effort to not get hit. Imagine this machine going on for a lifetime, never stopping to take a break. That is where Elisha sits, right there in the midst but she is not so quick, and so it is hit after hit after hit. Not the six runs kind of hit, but the kind that knocks you down until you're too weak to stand fit.

This is the battleground where Elisha stands. And as much as she tries to explain it, she just cannot finish...mental exhaustion overtakes.