When I make myself interesting again
︎︎︎ T. Garrison O'Donnell
︎ May 28, 2026
Sometimes I imagine my apartment
shrunk down & fit in a lunchbox.
In the shadow of a palm tree, I open
it & say: how are you, my itsy bitsy
life? When I was 10 I checked out
a documentary about the 1932 Winter
Olympics from the library, which had
an epigraph misattributed to Albert
Einstein: “Some are born great, some
achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them.” I remember sitting
on a basketball in the garage when I was
12 on a hot summer day & looking out
on the driveway at the back of the hoop
& the cars & for the 1st time in my life
understanding what boredom was.
If I had known the word anhedonia,
I would’ve said: Mother, today I am in
a state of anhedonia. The other day
I watched an ant scale the handle of
my fridge & for hours nothing could sour
my love of life: my apartment was a white
stone villa, my porch a diamond studded
terrace, the standing lamp by my bed
a huge candy cane; the world was like
an envelope I was a love letter sealed
snug in. I used to get mad when my siblings
talked about things that happened before
I was born: I’d think: they were having
such a good time, & I didn't even exist.
Caligula waged war on the ocean & I like
to imagine the splashing of thousands
of his soldiers stabbing the water.
Aristippus said that the only intrinsic
good is pleasure, especially momentary
instances of it & above all physical ones.
The word anhedonia is related to hedon.
Fucking, drinking wine, doing drugs,
these are all things that take up a certain
amount of time, & then they’re over.
I remember I told E once: this isn’t even fun
anymore, as I took the hand mirror he handed
me with a line & a 20 on it. I remember
dunking on the mini-hoop in the basement
on the door to the spare room & feeling like
I was the small orange ball in my palm
& the basket & the rim as my hand grabbed
it & I wondered whether I was born great,
would achieve greatness, or have greatness
thrust upon me, & decided it would be thrust
upon me. I thought: where is it gonna come
from? How does this work? Will it hurt?
I’m ready: bring it on. The spare room
didn’t have any windows in it & when I was
teenager I’d lie on the floor in there in
the dark until I felt like I didn’t have a body.
The Crown Prince Sado had his servant make
him a coffin which he’d lie in for hours.
To daydream has a positive connotation,
but to dissociate has a negative one. Life, if
I remember correctly, was a feast at which
all the oysters were shucked & everyone had
someone to fuck, though at times I feel like
I’m standing over a puddle staring at a band-aid
floating discarded & crumpled over my face
in the water. At E’s house we put blankets
over the windows so the nights would never
end. & why can’t the nights never end?
Why can’t we stay up forever doing twirly
walks down the diamond lined hallways
of the palace, lollygag in the park of satis-
faction, pollinate the eternal evening with being,
perfume the air with endless laughter, swim
in a gold fountain spewing a beautiful blue
liquid? When I was little I didn't need anyone
or anything for my entertainment, off in my world
of dreams, my head was television. So when I
make myself interesting again it’s like walking
onto the screen of escapist screwball comedy
I’ve written: everyone’s so happy to see me,
they clink glasses & champagne spills
on wrists with gold bracelets, a phonograph
plays music so good I nearly feel guilty
for it to exist, & it’s all the better knowing it’s
not real, is something I thought up on my own.
My grandfather liked to quote Satchel Paige,
who said: how old would you be if you didn’t
know how old you were? Once when I was
16 we were smoking a joint & Gramps said
to me: when I played the trumpet perfect I got
so deep into civilization’s consequence, I felt
like I might get in trouble, like God might
get mad or even jealous of me. Imagine my
surprise when I was 18 reading Twelfth Night
to find it was Feste the Clown & not Einstein
whose quote had been walking the halls
of my head for so long. I thought: what else
am I mistaken about? What else in my life
is lying? What’s it even mean for greatness
to be thrust upon you? Why would greatness
ever get within the world’s longest spitter’s
spitting distance of me? Once I went to Kroger
at 8 AM to get sushi & Gatorade after staying
up all night & my nose started bleeding
& some random woman took a bandana from
her around her neck & wiped it for me.
The other day I was at the Aldi & I forgot
to take my bar of choclate & the cashier ran
out to the parking lot to give it to me.
I thought: what did I do to deserve that?
Would I have done that? No, probably not.
Lying on my stomach with my head hanging
Over the edge of the bed I watch a spider
slowly crawl across a basketball shoe. If I didn’t
know old I was: I’d never be bored, & so happy
someone would string me up to a lightpole out
of jealousy.
shrunk down & fit in a lunchbox.
In the shadow of a palm tree, I open
it & say: how are you, my itsy bitsy
life? When I was 10 I checked out
a documentary about the 1932 Winter
Olympics from the library, which had
an epigraph misattributed to Albert
Einstein: “Some are born great, some
achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them.” I remember sitting
on a basketball in the garage when I was
12 on a hot summer day & looking out
on the driveway at the back of the hoop
& the cars & for the 1st time in my life
understanding what boredom was.
If I had known the word anhedonia,
I would’ve said: Mother, today I am in
a state of anhedonia. The other day
I watched an ant scale the handle of
my fridge & for hours nothing could sour
my love of life: my apartment was a white
stone villa, my porch a diamond studded
terrace, the standing lamp by my bed
a huge candy cane; the world was like
an envelope I was a love letter sealed
snug in. I used to get mad when my siblings
talked about things that happened before
I was born: I’d think: they were having
such a good time, & I didn't even exist.
Caligula waged war on the ocean & I like
to imagine the splashing of thousands
of his soldiers stabbing the water.
Aristippus said that the only intrinsic
good is pleasure, especially momentary
instances of it & above all physical ones.
The word anhedonia is related to hedon.
Fucking, drinking wine, doing drugs,
these are all things that take up a certain
amount of time, & then they’re over.
I remember I told E once: this isn’t even fun
anymore, as I took the hand mirror he handed
me with a line & a 20 on it. I remember
dunking on the mini-hoop in the basement
on the door to the spare room & feeling like
I was the small orange ball in my palm
& the basket & the rim as my hand grabbed
it & I wondered whether I was born great,
would achieve greatness, or have greatness
thrust upon me, & decided it would be thrust
upon me. I thought: where is it gonna come
from? How does this work? Will it hurt?
I’m ready: bring it on. The spare room
didn’t have any windows in it & when I was
teenager I’d lie on the floor in there in
the dark until I felt like I didn’t have a body.
The Crown Prince Sado had his servant make
him a coffin which he’d lie in for hours.
To daydream has a positive connotation,
but to dissociate has a negative one. Life, if
I remember correctly, was a feast at which
all the oysters were shucked & everyone had
someone to fuck, though at times I feel like
I’m standing over a puddle staring at a band-aid
floating discarded & crumpled over my face
in the water. At E’s house we put blankets
over the windows so the nights would never
end. & why can’t the nights never end?
Why can’t we stay up forever doing twirly
walks down the diamond lined hallways
of the palace, lollygag in the park of satis-
faction, pollinate the eternal evening with being,
perfume the air with endless laughter, swim
in a gold fountain spewing a beautiful blue
liquid? When I was little I didn't need anyone
or anything for my entertainment, off in my world
of dreams, my head was television. So when I
make myself interesting again it’s like walking
onto the screen of escapist screwball comedy
I’ve written: everyone’s so happy to see me,
they clink glasses & champagne spills
on wrists with gold bracelets, a phonograph
plays music so good I nearly feel guilty
for it to exist, & it’s all the better knowing it’s
not real, is something I thought up on my own.
My grandfather liked to quote Satchel Paige,
who said: how old would you be if you didn’t
know how old you were? Once when I was
16 we were smoking a joint & Gramps said
to me: when I played the trumpet perfect I got
so deep into civilization’s consequence, I felt
like I might get in trouble, like God might
get mad or even jealous of me. Imagine my
surprise when I was 18 reading Twelfth Night
to find it was Feste the Clown & not Einstein
whose quote had been walking the halls
of my head for so long. I thought: what else
am I mistaken about? What else in my life
is lying? What’s it even mean for greatness
to be thrust upon you? Why would greatness
ever get within the world’s longest spitter’s
spitting distance of me? Once I went to Kroger
at 8 AM to get sushi & Gatorade after staying
up all night & my nose started bleeding
& some random woman took a bandana from
her around her neck & wiped it for me.
The other day I was at the Aldi & I forgot
to take my bar of choclate & the cashier ran
out to the parking lot to give it to me.
I thought: what did I do to deserve that?
Would I have done that? No, probably not.
Lying on my stomach with my head hanging
Over the edge of the bed I watch a spider
slowly crawl across a basketball shoe. If I didn’t
know old I was: I’d never be bored, & so happy
someone would string me up to a lightpole out
of jealousy.
T. Garrison O'Donnell is a poet from Virginia.