bore·dom

/ˈbôrdəm/

noun

the state of feeling bored.

"the boredom of afternoon duty

could be relieved by

friendly conversation"

i

am never bored.

there is always

something to do,

someone to talk to,

even if that someone

is myself.

yes,

i am a very busy man,

my days filled to the brim

with obligations,

like a bird bath

after a spring storm.

no,

never shall i fall

victim to that curse.

boredom never haunts

the house i call my skull.

no,

i have never sat

on my couch

and fallen asleep

to avoid confronting

my own thoughts,

have

never ever made

a wrong turn

down dark roads

in order to inject

excitement into

my apathetic existence.

i

have ascended beyond

such petty concerns,

i no longer dwell

on past conversations

that sting my tongue

at two in the morning.

i

do not toss and turn

at all hours of the night

trying to find

meaning in the twisting

of my sheets.

no.

i am never bored.

and i definitely never

utilize my boredom

as a weapon

to stave off that

horrific ghost

of progress.

it feels as if

i cannot write

without a

challenge

to tell me

what to say.

without a prompt

i am empty

my mind an

endless void

waiting to be filled

with someone

else's thoughts.

i am a response,

an answer to

a question that

i never asked

because i can't dare

to start the

conversation.

i wait for

someone else

to say hello

before i dare to say

good morning.

and i wait for them

to ask how i am

before i dare

to voice my mood.

what happened

to the ideas that

used to come

spilling from my

lips and fingers

as a constant

stream of

consciousness?

am i really just

a vessel for

alien thoughts?

or can i allow myself

to achieve

that elusive

originality?

do i need

my permission

to speak?

There are always exceptions to any rule,

however,

is not this very rule itself

an exception?

For if every rule has an exception,

then this rule must also have an

exception.

And yet, it has no exception, because it applies to every rule.

Yet if it's applied to every rule

it would have to apply to itself,

meaning that the rule itself

is the exception.

But if it had

an exception,

then wouldn't that mean

it follows the rule?

But if it follows the rule,

then it isn't an exception,

and if it isn't an exception,

then...

Well, you see where this is going.

Such is the paradox of law,

driving even the sanest of men

to madness in search of an answer.

It was one of those nights that the whole earth seemed to toss and turn with you. Thunder and lightning strikes in tandem with your thoughts, and rain makes rivers on your window that match the streams on your face. And you stare at the ceiling, trying to work up the courage to throw off the sweaty lump of sheets and run sobbing for your parents. You tell yourself that you can do it alone. You're eight years old. You no longer need your parents' reassurance. Your friends make fun of you for crying at night. "Boys who cry are babies" they say. They make fun of you for a lot of things. Once you talked about how your parents used to show you a blanket and tell you that you were brought down by a stork. And your friend George laughed at you and said that's a baby story. And you said "if you're so smart, then you tell me how babies are made." And he couldn't answer you. But he laughed with your other friend Billy later. You saw them laughing together. They were probably laughing at you and your story about storks. But you know that story is true, because your parents showed you the checkered red and white blanket that you came in. It even had your name sewn into it in gold thread.

Finally you can take it no longer. The shadows on your wall are too dark, the thunder outside is too loud, and you long for the safety of your parents' room where everything is quiet and warm. Thunder cannot reach you when you crawl into your mother's arms.

You are scared, because your parents' door is closed and the hallway is dark. Your parents always told you not to come in if the door was closed. But you're so scared. Surely they won't mind if you come in, just this once.

As you approach the door, there's a new sound mingled in with the thunder. It sounds almost like crying, but that can't be right. Mommy and Daddy don't cry because they're adults. You can't wait until you're an adult so you don't cry anymore. Maybe if you don't cry then George will stop calling you a baby.

You listen closer to the Not Crying sounds, and you get even more scared because you can hear the movement of sheets. Maybe Mommy and Daddy are having a nightmare. No, that's not right. Adults don't have nightmares. Adults don't get scared.

You really don't want to open the door. They told you not to open the door. But the shadow down the hall seems to be moving closer to you and you can't go back to your room because the shadow is blocking the way.

You open the door just as Mommy is yelling Daddy's name. And now you're really scared because Daddy is on top of Mommy and he's not wearing any pants. Mommy says you have to wear pants all the time. Even to sleep. But Mommy isn't wearing pants either. And she looks like she might be sick because she's moving weirdly up and down and her eyes are half closed.

"Mama?"

The weird crying sound stops and Mommy opens her eyes. Maybe she's not sick.

Daddy turns around and he looks mad.

"How many times do we have to tell you, Max? Don't come in when the door's closed. My God, you're so... ugh! Damn it!"

You start crying.

"B-but I had a nightmare..."

"Go back to your room. Now."

You can't understand why he's so mad. But you go outside and shut the door.

Mommy yells at Daddy.

"Come on, Charles, he's just a kid."

"It's fine. It's no big deal.

"I'll be right back. I've gotta talk to him."

"No, you don't. Tell him in the morning. Later, Mary, please? We can finish first."

"No, Charles. We have to tell him."

"How do you explain that to an eight year old? Yeah, sorry about that, kid, we lied about the storks? He's gonna get all weepy. He's a little crybaby."

You stick your fingers into your eyes to stop the tears. You're not a crybaby.

"I'll figure it out. Just go back to bed."

"You can tell him in the morning. Come here."

"No, Charles, I'll be right back."

"Come on."

Mommy makes a weird sound that sounds a little bit like a laugh.

"I said no, Charlie..."

"Aw, you called me Charlie..."

Mommy laughs again.

"You sly dog. Fine. I'll tell him in the morning."

"Good."

They start making that not-quite-crying sound again, and you stare at the shadow at the end of the hallway. It doesn't scare you anymore. You're more scared of Mommy and Daddy now. At least the shadow in your room doesn't lie. But Mommy and Daddy lied. About the stork. What else have they lied about? Did they lie about what happened to Rover? And what happened to Grandma? Did they lie about Santa? About Easter? Did they even lie about God?

The shadow won't lie to you. You can see him now, the man in the shadows. He's the one who told you that George and Billy were making fun of you. He warned you that your parents were liars. He promised he would tell you the truth. And he would never laugh at you. And you were scared of him, because you thought he was dangerous, but now you know he's the only safe one.

And he'll protect you. He'll protect you from them all.

And, most importantly, he'll never, ever, lie.

thin red lines on

cream-colored paper

my walls look

like candy canes

swelled with

hardened sugar.

if only i had

a little more

self control.

i ate the walls,

gorged myself

on the plaster dust

as if it were

powdered sugar,

sucked on the paper

like it was made of

peppermint.

i could not taste

its sweetness,

but i felt it

settling in my gut

slipping down my throat

and pooling

just above the waist.

now my roof

is sagging

and my stomach

is sagging

and i can confirm

horizontal striped wallpaper

is fattening

but not enough

to fill the void

inside my stomach

that seems to stretch down

past my knees.

i can still taste you

between my teeth,

your skin the consistency

of rotting flesh.

i gagged on you this morning

when i brushed my teeth,

swallowed the chunks in my throat

just like i swallowed you.

and i can tell no one

what you did at midnight

because you've become something

that no one can understand.

even i am a stranger

to the wires in your mind.

even as i choked on you,

i could not taste

your motivations.

you've become

just another midnight confession,

another secret screamed at the night sky

in desperation.

impossible to vocalize,

yet impossible to swallow,

you linger in my mouth

and leave me to wonder

when my tongue

will stop twisting,

writhing with the torturous taste

of midnight,

and i wonder

if you can taste it too

when you look in the mirror

and see darkness

where the stars

should be.

the judge and the JURY deride

each of the opposing sides.

a TEST of wills that no one wins

for neither side will confess their sins.

KISSING lady justice's hand,

with a felled TREE at their feet.

like GARBAGE spray-painted with gold,

their smiling mouths hold only deceit.

and OUTSIDE where the wind blows cold

on a BEACH stained red with wronged blood,

the slain will wail their grievances

while their slaughterers cry "BRAVO!"

under the pretense of being ELEGANT,

they’ve only BROUGHT

more cruelty into the endless FIGHT

that invades every interaction

like a chat room in an unwinnable GAME,

adding INSULT to injury,

an unavoidable plight,

because there is no PEACE

when OPPOSITE sides refuse to AGREE.

and while we scream and shout,

our every INSTINCT begs us to RUN

away from water and into the DROUGHT

because the scorching WIND has become

more comfortable than the rain

that threatens to wash away

our comfortable ignorance

leaving us to cope

with our self-imposed

injustice.

it's easiest to think of them as

light switches.

then all i have to do is

flip them

with a finger.

i've only just started flipping them,

only just begun

to alter

the fabric of my mind.

but i've made progress.

god, that word

scares me.

it's a symbol of

the unknown.

i still haven't flipped that switch yet,

the switch that equates progress with

happiness.

i still cannot comprehend

what it means to

get better

and it terrifies me

to know that one day

it could happen to me

and i won't

be ready for it.

it's easier to dwell here

in my suicidal thoughts,

because i don't know who i am

without them.

there's the other switch.

the part of me that tethers

suicide to strength

and life

to weakness.

every day i survive

should be a victory

but i only see it

as a loss.

and it's just these two little switches

that linger in my mind

hovering at the forefront

of my subconscious.

it should be easy to flip them,

like turning the lights on

in my room

to keep the monsters out.

but my fingers are numb

and i can no longer coax movement

from my fingertips.

or maybe the light switch

is broken,

maybe some sadistic "friend"

took a hammer

to the wiring

and now the switch

no longer turns on

at all.

whatever the case,

the switches stay flipped

to off,

the irrationality stays fixed

in my brain

it's the obstruction

that i can't bring myself

to let go of,

because without my broken switches,

would i even be me at all?

or would i just be

another blur

in an indifferent universe?

add the BUTTER to the pan,

let it trace its

liquid path

of destruction until

the whole pan

is hissing.

add tomatoes

like the nose of a CLOWN,

seasoned with HORSE play

and the bitter GIFT

of comedy

that weighs HEAVY on the mind

but light

on the tongue.

add CHEESE,

BOXES full of it

until it's all you can taste,

to BUILD up that LAUGH

that you crave.

if you need to, go SHOPPING

to buy that pie in the SKY idea,

the PRIZE that's been avoiding you.

and then

stir it all together,

the butter, the tomatoes, the cheese, the pie

until it is THICK with anticipation.

and don't listen to the VOICE

that warns of mixing these things TOGETHER,

for surely once it is WARM

it will become

a delicacy for the ages,

served in tupperware containers

tied up with STRING by YOUNG hands,

delivered in secrecy to unsuspecting doorways

by a chef

who's always AFRAID

of being CAUGHT

and tried for his crimes

against humanity.

words are cheap,

easily tuned out

by rebellious ears.

i know you too well,

know how you've

mastered the art of

going deaf to good advice.

after all,

i was you once.

so instead of offering some

well-thought out wisdom,

it'd be much more effective

to drop kick you

off a ledge

into a frozen river

and watch you float away

on your own

self-loathing

that you still

haven't grown out of.