an unrehearsed universe

Ennui

It has weight: a backpack five pounds beyond carry comfort.

A texture too, akin to grainy risotto
or broken Béchamel, not inedible
but unpleasant all the same.

A thing to live with and live through,
the third hour of a trans-oceanic journey.
There might be an end;
there likely is an end – unless –
the gods are cruel
(and merciful).

It is two neighborhoods over from grin-and-bear-it,
a close enough subway ride
to suicide to make it worth the contemplation
but not the bother.

What is despair
if not dissatisfaction magnified many times over?

Happiness
a fleeting thing,
quite possibly a mirage.

Even contentment is but a sister-at-arms,
albeit more comfortably dressed.

So it must be fine.
To be
feeling anything
is still to be.

Is there a use in “getting better”
when worse is the mean?

Here
there is no disappointment;
nothing could please.

There
it sits,
old faithful friend,
content in its advantages,
unfazed
as you dabble with other emotions,
waiting.