A library at closing time, when nothing else has worked today — for a night when you do not want to think

Your own book is heavy in your hands, and you have stopped reading it. Everything here will still be here tomorrow. There is a trolley of returned books beside the desk, waiting to be put back.

The windows are dark enough now to reflect the room back at you. A book lies open on the next table, face down, which is technically not allowed. The library closed twenty minutes ago, and the staff are working along the far shelves, switching off sections.

Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Let your calves spread out and flatten.

Let your ribs stop working so hard. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.

The carpet has flattened every sound in the building down to nothing. The reading room you are in has one lamp left on, and it is the one above your table.

Let your forearms get heavy and warm. Your chest can be still now.

Let your hands be completely still. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.

Someone is pushing a trolley two rows away, and you can hear each wheel separately. The clock above the door is the old kind, with a second hand that moves in small jumps.

Notice the tone of your own inner voice. Is it kind? Notice how you're sitting. Adjust if you need to. Then settle again.

Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Your ankles can go loose now.

Stay with the weight of your body. Let the sound of this go soft at the edges.

Let it all get further away. Let them. Nothing here needs following closely.

Nothing else has worked today. That is not a reason to skip this.

I will stop here. The quiet will carry on without the words.