What we steal from tomorrow…
Translated from French. Read the original
The ceiling knows him by heart.
He has stared at it for hours, unmoving,
while the night frayed away without him...
Dawn arrives before he has closed his eyes.
It doesn't knock... it barges in,
cold and indifferent to what was never lived...
There are mornings when the body gets up
but the soul stays behind in the sheets.
On mornings like these, you know...
The night was his.
He never lived in it.
And the day that follows carries the weight of what he failed to take...
Thoughts that once ran free
now stagger like candles in the wind.
Words slip away,
decisions weigh a ton...
He told himself a coffee would do.
That he was only borrowing a little from tomorrow.
But tomorrow always arrives as a creditor,
and the interest is paid in flesh...
For the body keeps its own books.
It does not forgive, it defers.
And whatever was stolen from it in the night,
it reclaims in broad daylight ... with usury...
Once, you can push through the lack.
You tell yourself it's just a bad patch.
But walk the same path back often enough,
and the ground gives way beneath your feet...
And then comes the day you can no longer close your eyes,
even when everything in you is calling for sleep...
Rest is not the reward for work well done.
It is the ground on which all work stands.
Take care of yourself.
#MrDNEJ
First published on Growing a Little More Each Day
