Little Green Dot
OCTOBER 20, 2023I’m so bored I’ve found God. He’s the little green dot that appears when I open PhotoBooth.“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.” Amen. I would have stopped, at the 1:21:36 mark, when nothing had changed and my tears were so loud that everyone except for God could hear them. But another hour can change me. I could see God in my sad pixelated face and then I won’t need a new one. I need a lot of things, things I don’t think he can give me, but I am giving him this chance to try.
I’m so bored, I took a lover, and he took me back. I spent every night prior to meeting him on PhotoBooth, talking to God. Wishing and hoping and praying. “Make things less hard, and scary, and fast.” I wished for everything and I got Leo. He was late to our first date. I waited for him at a table between medical journalists and well-adjusted adult women. The medical journalists told me about bones and diabetes over a plate of prosciutto. They asked me why my boyfriend was late.“Prospective boyfriend,” I corrected them and they Ahh-ed. When Leo arrived they told him what I called him, “the prospective boyfriend,” and I wished their bones would break and they too would fall ill with diabetes. They gave him hope, the worst gift to be exchanged between adult men. Leo is still sending me poems, a month after our two-week-long middle-school-style fling came and went. Increasing my boredom and my distrust in God and my resentment of the medical journalists. We had fun while it lasted, he even taught me some Italian, but now he doesn’t seem to understand it himself.
“I know we haven’t spoken in some time, but I miss you…”
“Esci dalla mia vita.” [Get out of my life.]
I’m so bored, I kissed Kai. He’s the most exciting thing that has happened in ages. He makes me giddy like my Malibu boy, without any tears. I tell him about my time in Los Angeles and he tells me I’m “crazy.” He asks for my shallow opinions and a list of my “turn-ons” and it’s so much better than “I know we haven’t spoken in some time…” He still won’t hold me, but I don’t need to be held anymore. I have regained feeling and the feeling is boredom and he can fix that.
I’m so bored, I have tripped and fallen in love. I am a nonsensical person. His name is Alex and he wants nothing to do with me and he keeps me busy that way. We stay up until 6:00 a.m. together, he lets me talk and sometimes I think he is listening. He tells me he can’t sleep with me, “I would feel bad, taking you home and fucking you, and not texting you tomorrow.” He says it like it is some chivalrous act, not having sex with me. “Sure, it wouldn’t be appropriate,” I agree. Everyone says that I only like him because I always get what I want and he’s the first that won’t comply, but I never get what I want and he’s just like all the rest. I don’t know how to tell them that I’m so bored I have confessed my love to Alex, knowing he doesn’t like me back.
I’m so bored, I think it’s time to change my life. I’ll drop out of school and I’ll let Dad cut me off. I’ll cry about that because I haven’t cried over something real in years. I’ll find a new Dad-like figure. I’ll let him take me to Europe. I’ll find God in a rolling hill, I’ll find myself in a linen dress and kitten heels. I’ll come back to America and I’ll tell everyone I’m Alice Cooper’s grandchild, and I’ll see if that gets me somewhere. I’ll tell Alex that I like him, but this time I’ll ask God if he likes me back. I’ll write a tell-all, and I’ll sell one hundred copies, and then I will have a baby and I will never look back.
I’m so bored, I’m still sleeping with my ex-boyfriend. Don’t tell Kai. Leo knows that’s why he went crazy. God knows that’s why he won’t give me Alex. It is a cardinal sin to sleep with your ex-boyfriend, we all agree, but I thought that I could have a baby with my ex-boyfriend and together we would never look back. Now I know about the girls and he knows about the boys and we will never face forward. If we had a baby together, I would spend the rest of my life in reverse, apologizing; reassuring and resenting him, with our baby and my book in the backseat.
I’m so bored, I need more time. I’m doing the math on my calculator app. I’m winning every Japanese auction I can find. I’m crossing the days off my calendar. Another 6:00 a.m. night, coming home with the sun. Leaving notes on the nightstand. Texting everyone back at 2 p.m., “Good Morning!” Replying to FaceTime calls with “I’m in the zone.” But the zone is a foreign bed. I haven’t produced something legible in weeks. Despite being so bored I could die, I have seemingly no time on my hands. I party all night and I sleep all day and in my spare moments, I pray. I hope God doesn’t mishear me when I say “a new reason” and gives me an aneurysm instead. Because he always mishears me. I prayed for “emotionally vulnerable” and I got pitiful poems. I prayed for “emotionally available” and I got the only man in Manhattan with a moral compass. I prayed for tenderness and now the only one who wants to hold me is my ex-boyfriend. I don’t even want to be held anymore. God doesn’t listen, and soon, I’ll stop praying.