Productive Boredom

"sitting here in WEB detention with twenty-six, no, twenty-five minutes to go until my real day begins, the Wednesday part where school is done and I can start thinking of Thursday as today instead of tomorrow. When the week is through, THIS week will be the last week even though last week was next week. I'll start to wonder if summer is really where I want to be or if I'd actually like spring back? But not exam spring -- fresh spring. The spring that revives the hope winter covered, the hope that left with Christmas. Spring means my birthday but that's gone too now, and so begins another year. My years don't begin in January, they only continue. Funny thing, unless it follows Earth's orbit, the people rumored to live in space stations in the quote-end-quote NEAR future would have to have completely different calendars. So I know how you exchange currency, but how do you exchange time? No one waits to help you at the launch pad to say, oh thank you Miss, you have successfully traded an Earth May for a Space August. Enjoy your flight. And I never wanted to be an astronaut. Almost like I accept that space is far away and that I'll always be looking up at it. I suppose that every person no matter what would be amazed to look down at it. To look past their feet and see Orion's Belt. Are astronauts afraid of heights? I don't think they even could be. Fear of heights mixes with fear of falling, and you can't fall without gravity. I wouldn't like space then. I like knowing I'm held down. That even if there's no one to hold me, there's an unshakable force that couldn't let go if it tried. It's a wonderful thing that gravity isn't touchy because if it were, screaming children and prick bosses would be out in the stratosphere. At what point do balloons burn? When you let go, where do they end? I hope it's relatively painless. Even though my birthday balloons? The wilted ones hanging from my bed post? They're arguably sadder than any balloon who got to see the world. Is it worth it? To fly farther than any other with the knowledge that an inferno awaits? I almost think it is."