bored o’ clock.

tick tok.

the life of boredom is slipping swiftly from us.

*

i remember when boredom was an art form.

creativity sparked

from a starlit,

mosaic mess of a mind alive.

*

we sat for hours

tracing every corner of the house,

finding lifelines in cracks of paint

and passing shadows.

*

we walked so calmly.

silence held us softly

inside an ordinary afternoon.

whispering, “be still” in the air .

*

the ceiling circled.

the clock ticked loudly.

and we could actually hear it

sounding.

when did it all get so loud?

*

not outside..

but inside.

inside our minds,

where every empty second must be filled,

every pause interrupted,

every silence conquered with “productivity.”

*

bored o’clock.

*

the sacred hour between

doing nothing

and becoming something.

*

the ceiling circling.

the mind wandering.

the self unfolding…

*

but, oh, the clock strikes nine in our time.

plain black screens,

risen from our pockets,

quietly dictating our lives.

*

they barely fill our hands,

yet overshadow our minds

like an invisible bullet,

aimed not at our heads

but at our attention..

a slow explosion.

*

attention spans shortened,

thoughts fragmented.

like six, seven

but where does it start, end, stop, follow up?

we can’t seem to piece together the whole anymore..

*

and we began swinging to the whims of algorithms

that knew our impulses better than we did.

or so they think.

i mean how could we know

our lack of self-awareness makes us believe anything.

(sigh)

*

restrictions once built resilience.

stillness was the hidden cultivator of peace.

boredom was a patient teacher,

asking nothing but our presence.

*

but now?…

cheap dopamine hums at an all-time high,

feeding us seconds

while stealing our hours,

giving us the illusion of more

while quietly leaving us with less.

yet there is a steadier portion of richness

waiting in stillness,

don’t you see?

*

the clock still ticks.

the room is still there.

the ceiling still waits for wandering eyes.

but we no longer sit still long enough to hear ourselves think,

to go further,

to hear our thoughts dissolve to nothing.

*

and so bored o’clock passes unnoticed,

another hour buried beneath notifications,

another chance to meet ourselves,

lost to the endless scroll.

*

and i wonder if most of our turmoil begins…

the moment we become afraid

of being alone

in our room

in our homes…

of being ALONE

with the sound

of the turning clock.

*

Tick tok.

*

author’s note

my favourite thing to do before i had a phone, as a preteen girl, was gaze at the clock and the ceilings.

at the time, i thought i was doing nothing.

now, i think i was learning how to be alone with my thoughts.

bored o’clock is a reflection on, and a reclaiming of, boredom, silence, and the disappearing spaces where we stay still and the art of  imagination, meditation and being has room to grow. I hope this unravels peace and stillness in you.