Sorry I Haven't Opened You Lately

I’ve been neglecting my therapist—
the one that lives in my phone,
tucked between grocery lists
and half-finished captions
I swore I’d come back to.

She’s quiet,
doesn’t send reminders,
just holds the weight of my thoughts
like a best friend too polite
to say I’ve been distant.

I used to bleed into her,
truths typed at stoplights,
verse during nap time,
dreams stitched together
in lowercase and autocorrect.

Now?
Now I’m just tired.
Like deep-in-the-bones,
don’t-even-want-to-think tired.
The kind of tired that makes
even joy feel like another task
to check off.

Maybe it’s hormones.
Maybe it’s the pile of laundry
that keeps growing
no matter how many times I fold it.
Maybe it’s the guilt
that I should be soaking up
every second of her girlhood
like sunshine,
but instead I just want
one hour
to not be needed.

I’m stuck—
between what lights me up
and what I should love.
And isn’t that a twisted kind of grief?
To miss yourself
while holding everything
you ever prayed for?

I scroll past the poems now.
The ones I promised to finish.
The ones that held
little pieces of me
before the fog rolled in.

But I’ll be back,
I always am.
My notes app knows this.
She’s patient,
like the page,
like grace.

Author’s Note:

I wrote this in the thick fog of exhaustion — the kind that dims even the brightest parts of you. Lately, I’ve felt pulled between the work I want to do and the work I should love doing. Motherhood is beautiful, but it’s also relentless. Writing used to be my way through everything. Now even that feels like a mountain.

This isn’t writer’s block. This is being human. This is a love letter to the version of me who still exists, even when the words go quiet.

If you’ve ever felt guilty for needing space to breathe, this one’s for you too.