an essay by Gaby Dunn

The members of your family, when you were little, would always pee with the door open. You would do it that way, still, even as an adult, if you knew other people didn't find it distasteful. They've told you so anyway. You don't have a lot of personal boundaries. You get bored a lot. When you get bored, you want to peel back everyone's scabs. You want open wounds. You want to see something interesting.

When you get bored, you are dangerous. Danger breeds selfishness. You become so preoccupied that you view other people as toys, as something you can play with, as trivial amusements. You want a reaction more than you want other people to feel safe or comfortable. Your boredom makes you hate safe and makes you loathe comfortable. And you assume everyone is like you. If they aren't, they're boring.

It's a cat batting at a gasping, dying mouse. It's not human, or humane behavior. It's exacerbated by drinking, sure, as most deplorable personality traits are. You think things are fun until maybe they aren't. When you are bored, you want to push. You want to do more than what people expect. You want experiences. It's a fancy way of saying you don't care anymore.

You wonder how normal people cure boredom. What's the outlet? To strip everyone naked? To put your finger in the bullet hole and swirl it around? To fly to Tokyo on a whim? Your father once told you, "Wherever you go, there you are" because he is an alcoholic and when he tried to run away, he crashed into a streetlamp, and nearly died. Boredom and danger. Bedfellows.

Should the boredom overcome you, what should you do? You don't trust yourself. It's like being a diabetic in a candy shop. The boredom makes you wring your hands together behind your back. Makes you stand at attention with stress. Makes you ignorant to anything but flying into a black abyss. You want everything because maybe one of those things can fix you. It can't. But maybe.

And boundaries? Boundaries are boring. They deserve to be lifted high and thrown down, shattered like crystal. the pieces left to rot. Your are bored. You are so very bored that you'll do anything not to be.


Gaby Dunn has a website.
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