Boredom, by Evie Tink

If you were to ask me what boredom was, I’d tell you were boring and to stop asking stupid questions, but if you really persisted, I would tell you boredom is the tick tock on the white clock on the white wall of our English classroom. It’s the thrill of seeing how many dried crackers you can cram into your mouth before your mouth becomes a cracked and dried desert. Boredom is making up haikus, Alone but not quite knowing, How many syllables go on each line… Boredom is haikus. Boredom is 

The decapitation of innocent 
Grass blades as you listen to an unenthused sports teacher
The blood of your unwitting enemies splattered on your fingers.
Boredom is this boring poem

Now you were never one for boredom 
You enjoyed sitting on the grass, getting a soggy bum 
You enjoyed the crunch of crackers snapping on your tongue
You really enjoyed
And I still do not know why
Making up haikus 
You enjoyed the languorous spaces between lines 

And I guess that was just you 

But recently the silence has been getting short. 
It’s rudely interrupted by forced laughs and nervous glances
From eyes that recently went shopping

You jump at every crunch or crack, scared of well…
I don’t know 

And your poetry, 
Well, you barely write anymore because you just can’t seem to muster up the energy and you’re just tired and its nothing to worry about and it doesn’t matter anyway because you have an English essay due 

And the grass misses your bum 

And I miss you

There’s someone in your place, a lethargic parody, too frightened to pick up the phone, frightened by nothing at all 
There’s a black hole in the shape of a friend 
Hidden behind the comets of comedy and asteroids of avoidance there’s a small hole

I reach in, grasping for a hand, 
I catch glimpses, tufts of hair, old coffee smiles 
But… nothing 
So I try again 

I reach in, grasping for a hand, or even a bone 
I catch glimpses of skin, tufts of hair, teeth
Nothing 

And each time I throw myself into the silent abyss, 
Batter past the comets and asteroids and reach into that dark expanse I find less and less 
I miss you 

I am right outside 
Whenever you’re ready to
we can talk a bit

I’m trying my best 
And I really care for you 
But haikus are dumb
Accept it, it’s true 

The spot of grass is waiting right where you left off
The cracker in the tin are there just waiting to be scoffed 
If ever in that silence 
You feel yourself alone 
Just know that in my house, 
You’ve found yourself a home.