When you are exhausted you cannot feel at all,
and this is just one virtue of your constant pacing.
The other is that if you keep your heart in motion
the blood will never settle, you will never be
placated by stillness, or complacent with yourself
and all of your many shortcomings. You will try
to do better, be better, be perfect. You will try.
You cannot exculpate yourself from the innate
guilt of being human. You will try, but you will not
admit you are addicted to empty. You scrape apart 
your severed heart, gut it with your own hands. 
Your skull is the only thing left you cannot clear. 
But believe me, you have tried. You always try. Pass 
out in the sun, pretend to sleep. Racing in the night,
you reach near panic about the cards and the hand 
you were dealt. It could’ve been good enough
if you wanted less, if you cared less about control.
You hold onto so much, you can hold onto nothing.
The world slips around you, the gracious nightfall 
carves each day to its bones. The moon, a gaunt
face, a glittering reflection of everything beautiful 
that you will never be. It’s okay, you have accepted this
nearly. You have walked in place for six hours straight
like you do every day. The sun slowly archs and falls
as the world’s wheel turns. You are still mostly sane
by the time you finally voided a day’s worth of work.
Even if the directionless walking gets you nowhere
at least you can say you fought relentlessly for it,
that you had the stamina to kill yourself over it.
And at least you can say that you tried and tried
and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried.
You are tried. You are guilty. You are not enough.