An Ode to Boredom

On a hot summer day, the three of us took turns losing at Super Mario in the attic. Sweating. Uncomfortable.

Stuck.

A eulogy for my friend named:
I dunno… what do you want to do?

Just one more time I want to sit with you, restless and straining, begging our minds for an idea the way you used to make us.

Over the years we drifted apart.

I was too busy, or too lazy, for too long. I’m sorry.

It took until now for me to realize that even though it never felt that great to sit with you, you were the doorway. The real me was on the other side of you.

I wouldn’t know who I was without you.

I would never have played those games, created those stories, done that thing. The thing that could only happen then, in that place, with nothing else to do.

Damn how I’ve run from you. God how I want you back.

If I’d been quicker to realize. If I didn’t have to see you go.

I could make you a piece of sushi

I mean

I could turn you into a piece of sushi.

Not the fish, the story.

A reverent taste. A perfect bite of the past.

If you were still alive, I could start a secret school to teach you like a lost art. A ceremony. A ritual.

The crinkle. The sit. The wait.

Everything held in that moment.

Back in my day we fought over eight bits. We made witch’s brew. We stood on the corner with a sickle, ready to fight, and told cars not to take kids because Oprah told us to.

I miss you dearly. I ache to be again on a couch with nothing to do.

I’m sorry you had to watch me watch someone watch someone do something random. I’m sorry you had to watch me do that so many times and call it living. Call it leisure. Call it “I’m tired.” Call it “I deserve this.” Call it anything but what it was, a long, bright sprint away from you.

Now call it a prayer. I miss you. Call it let the car break down, the internet go out, the phone fall in the sewer. I can almost feel you running into my arms. I’m crying I ache for that embrace.

You were always right there at the door, coming up my walk, while I walked past you to get in the car with my hot date.

Damn