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Posts Tagged ‘boredom’

When My Teenage Daughter Stays Home Sick

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 1, 2024| 5 Comments »


 
 
We color. I pull out the only coloring book
we have left, most of the pages already full
of half-finished attempts from years ago.
Blue and pink seals. A resting jaguar
with one purple eye, the other eye green.
We sit side by side the way we have
since she could first hold a crayon
and choose a fresh page to color.
She coughs. I sing with her playlist.
We chatter about nothing important
and fill in the green of the leaves,
make a monkey with orange and blue hair.
And it’s boring. We both agree.
Buy my god, I’m so grateful today
to be bored with her,
so grateful to fill in the lines
because right now, there is no room
but this one, this the gift:
her sniffling, the house filled with midday sun,
my life so tethered to her life,
the pink pencil growing shorter every minute.

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Waiting for the Planes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 26, 2023| 13 Comments »

Hello urge to be productive.
Aren’t you so sincere?
I see how you think
because there is nothing to do
but wait for the next two hours,
wait for the next five hours,
wait for the next seven hours,
you think I should do something
useful and industrious,
something practical and time efficient.
Something generative.
As if to sit and do nothing
is not a gift.
As if waiting is nothing
but an invitation to work.
As if the goal in life is to
check things off an eternal list.
The longer I sit,
the harder it is to hear you,
well-intentioned as you are.
See how I sprawl on the floor now?
And now, how I rock on my heels
and hum and swing my hips?
How I close my eyes
knowing I won’t fall asleep.
Oh the kingdom of boredom.
How it takes everything I have
to meet it and let it rule me,
to treat it like the treasure it is—
the chance to not be clever,
to not shine, to wander between ambition
and disappointment, between mettle
and quietude, to find a chair
I might sit in for a while
and meet the urge to be productive.
And not open my book.
Not pick up my knitting.
Not study French.
Not converse with a stranger. Not make the call.
Not even smile as I type not a word.

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Dear Boredom,

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 9, 2018| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

I miss you. I miss your long

minutes, your interminable hours,

your days that promised never to end.

What became of your

afternoons full of nothing?

Your yawning mornings?

Our weekends on the couch?

I remember how you once

wrapped your arms around me

and I thought you meant forever.

I believed in your quiet loyalty,

how still you were, not even

the curtains moved.

Now, even the moon is in a rush,

sprinting across the stars.

Now every single thing

has some song to sing.

The day hurls around

its confident light

and the minutes strut

around in berets and shout

into their megaphones.

Look, I’ve saved a place

for you at my table.

Please come. I don’t

remember what you look like,

but if you just hold me,

I’ll know it’s you come home,

I’ll know.

 

 

 

 

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