Her heart felt tired.

So many commitments.

To-do lists.

Early starts.

Her tired heart couldn’t fathom the act of picking up a pen and scratching it tiredly across blue-lined, white sheets of paper.

“Later,” she thought.

Like she had thought so many times before.

Later…

She sat before the bright, blank white of the screen

The vertical, black cursor blinking tauntingly

Her vision blurred—with exhaustion? Or with the birth of tears?

She blinked and felt sweet relief, the moment her eyelids kissed.

A dog trotted by with jingling tags,

Her head whipped towards it instinctively, welcoming the distraction.

She sat back and took a moment to just breathe.

To feel the rise and fall of her chest… the expansion of her ribs…

She could feel her heart beating.

She allowed her eyelids to kiss once again, leaving them locked in their delicate embrace.

She sat, eyes closed, breathing and feeling the rhythm of her beating heart

Over and over and over.

Her fingers began to dance over the square, black keys

Tip-tapping, click-clacking.

Words spilled out from a place deep within her tired heart.

Just simple words… but words nonetheless.

She leaned back and took a breath,

The corners of her mouth tugged away from each other, into a faint smile.

Perhaps this was enough.

Enough—for now.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

Sign up for our (curated) daily and weekly newsletters!

Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Lionel Allorge via Wikimedia Commons