The Grit in My Eyes

Dear Delyara, The clock on the wall says 3:30 AM, and my eyelids feel like they are lined with coarse sand. Chronic exhaustion doesn’t just make you tired; it changes the way you see the world. Everything feels muted, gray, and slightly out of focus, like I’m watching my own life through a dirty windowpane. I tried to read a chapter of a book to escape my own thoughts, but the words just swam across the page without meaning. I am trapped in a cycle of sleeping when the sun is up and working when the world is asleep, and it feels like I’m slowly slipping through the cracks of the human race. I miss the simple warmth of a normal evening—the sound of neighbors talking across fences, the smell of dinner cooking, the feeling of being connected to the daylight. Tonight, I am just a ghost watching a sleeping world.