Burnout

The phone rings at 2 a.m. and the flame that was finally starting to return simmers down again to smoky embers.

Back to work. Always, always, always back to work.

In the middle of dinner, back to work.

Half-way through rinsing the soap suds from my hair, back to work.

In the grocery store on my only day off,

"Hi, can you __ ? Oh, no, I didn't know you aren't on-call today"

But I hate saying no here. I took this job. I love this job. I knew what I was getting into,

but not really. Not like this. Not with every single day like this.

So I count down the weeks, the days, the seconds if I have to

until relief arrives and I'm not drowning in two people's jobs and the flame can reignite for real again