Exhausted (Prose Poem)

Everybody’s walking on glass. Thick-hard glass. Glass so thick you could never even tell it was there. We walk, on and on and on, till we can barely tell were walking anymore. Why do we walk?

Cause they said so.

We listen to them. Listen hard and good. Listen cause they said too, but not because we want to hear. We hear words. Pointless, dirty words. Money, greed, fast, now, him, her, me. How can a dictionary print thousands of words in black and white, but the only one we see are the bright red “yes” and the yellow “more”. It feels like it’s all we know anymore.

As we mature, we start to run. We run on the thick-hard glass. Glass so thick you could never even tell it was there. Run fast, hard and long, or they’ll pass us and they’ll leave us behind. “Catch up or get lost” they’ll say. If you can’t hang with the best, then you’re just not worth it.

Our legs are growing tired now, we’re running out of time. Slowly but surely running out of time. They always told us we had all the time in the World. Who knew the world was so small? We try to sit but our legs are stiff. Stiff from years of running. Running because they said so.

For the first time, we can start to see ourselves in the glass. The thick-hard glass. Glass so thick you could never even tell it was there. We look tired. Legs shaking and ears aching, can’t we just stop running? There’s going to come a point where we become tired of walking and tired of running, tired of listening and tired of trying. Our legs will collapse and so will the glass. The thick-hard glass.


-Kailee Phillips