Boredom

[heslopian]

“Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld
So I can sigh eternally.” – Nirvana, Pennyroyal Tea

To say I’m surrounded by wasted lives
would imply those lives once had potential.
The retarded man orders a pot of tea
for his elderly female companion, telling the waitress
again and again that he’s paying with his money;
she rolls her eyes beneath dyed hair. Her expression says
“I belong to this generation, and disapprove of those
who don’t.” But she is just as tedious as the man child
in his rain coat, and again the word “wasted” seems wrong.
No chair could be made from these sticks.
I finish my steak dinner and leave. The clouds look heavy.

Perhaps serial killers are driven in part by ennui,
a boredom so fierce they must score their lives with screams.
Tired of hallways and doors, books, cinemas, alarm clocks
and grocery bills, the million ways we prolong our lives,
maybe they see the rope, the knife, the pretty girl’s neck
on the couch beside them, then suddenly the world is red,
glorious, bright, filling the monochrome shapes.