nothing is a good thing

There was nothing to do.

So I jumped through a plate-glass window while we were playing follow-the-leader because I thought, “No one will ever follow me through this.” I got twelve stitches across my head.

There was nothing to do.

So we built a bike track in the valley, defined it with stones, and we crashed through the dirt all summer long, long before the rangers would stop and ask us if we’d been attacked.

There was nothing to do.

So I jumped on the roof of the car and held on and we drove real fast until I fell off (and I told mom and dad that I fell of a skateboard). I am still so proud of these scars.

There was nothing to do.

So we built traps by putting newspaper over holes in the backyard, covering them in dirt, and tried to lure people into walking over them. No one ever got hurt.

There was nothing to do.

So I built chlorine bombs in the backyard and nearly killed us all so many times. If you tried to do the same, you’d wind up on a watch list.

There was nothing to do.

So we kissed girls outside the church every Sunday when the pastor wasn’t looking.

There was nothing to do.

I jumped into bed and missed. Five more stitches.

There was nothing to do.

I fell out of a tree and branch caught my arm on the way down. Eighteen stitches.

There was nothing to do.

I slid down a telephone pole and a nail tore open my leg. Eight more stitches.

There was nothing to do.

My foot slipped between the bed and the cupboard where dad kept his razor blades. Twenty-five more stitches.

There was nothing to do.

And I would kill for nothing to do, and the energy and the ignorance, to do it. Regardless of the stitches.

Here at last, we shall be free

~

Just to clarify, I did not write this.