A library at closing time, when you have more time than usual — for winding down

The last of the day's light is going out of the high windows. Your own book is heavy in your hands, and you have stopped reading it. The air smells of paper, dust and floor polish.

The reading room you are in has one lamp left on, and it is the one above your table. The clock above the door is the old kind, with a second hand that moves in small jumps. The carpet has flattened every sound in the building down to nothing.

Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.

Feel your wrists loosen. Let your hands be completely still.

Everything here will still be here tomorrow. Someone is pushing a trolley two rows away, and you can hear each wheel separately.

Notice your hips, wide and settled. Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out.

Notice if you're being hard on yourself about any of this. If you feel numb, that's a valid thing to feel. Nothing to fix.

Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.

Nothing needs deciding tonight. The words can start to blur now.

You can stop listening properly. Let the quiet be boring. Nothing here needs following closely.

This is the longer version, for a day with some slack in it.

No more sentences. Just the weight of you in the bed.