Recently, there has been this ennui within my life.

And when people speak about ennui, they speak about boredom.
How it vegetates, plant-like, snake-like. A slithering stagnation.
Like sleep and death, it lingers in their everyday lives, like a glacier in the alps, like a crystal-clear lake it sways them into forgetting it, into accepting it.

In my case, it is nothing like that.

My ennui is a burning, churning sea.
With every wave it drowns me, keeps my throat dry and my hands clammy.
Like an itchy spot on my back I can’t possibly reach, it has my undivided attention and I can’t do anything to stop it.

An urge I cannot satisfy,
a craving for drugs I cannot get.

There has been this ennui within my life, and I don’t know how to get rid of it.

It is a restlessness that comes and goes, like unreliable trains, its arrivals and departures are unscheduled and uncalled for. But once it’s there, this boredom of mine, it keeps me moving on my chair, rocking to and fro, until nothing happens at all.

Occasionally I fight it with distractions,
with reading poetry and novels,
with chain smoking and contemplating my existence,
with thoughts about the apocalypse and your passion for photography.
No matter how farfetched the topics are I try to ease my mind with,
how outlandish the concepts I come up with,
how captivating the colour of your eyes,
they all only last for a minute or two, before the monstrous tide comes crashing back into my life.

When I speak about ennui, I speak about nothing at all.
When I wait for my ennui, I wait for nothing in particular.

There has been this ennui within my life, and it keeps me on my toes.