Time, spent like this, doesn’t weigh heavily, weighs
almost nothing at all, fills in, fills up, follows a set
schedule, offers some diversion, endless game shows,
some cooking, and home improvement, reruns of
reruns, comedies we know well enough to recall
the lines and old police shows smacking of relevance
from ten, twenty years ago; we’ve come to this after
the years we were too busy to even know that this
exists, this world of filler, what some of us do all day
while the rest are away, it’s like a waiting room for
those of us waiting for time to pass, the day to end
it explains us, begins to define us, the lost, the ghosts
the shadows of our former selves, it knows us well
replaces friends and family and conversation, fills
in the silence that so easily grows all around us now.
