Knowledge is infinite, exponentially growing
We learn to live without ever really knowing.

© Matthew Harlovic

If the world revolved around you,
injustice, insufficiency, and insolence
would get stuck in your dreads.

© Matthew Harlovic

There’s a widow in the windowsill
weeping like a willow, weeping like a willow
while her child tries to fall asleep
weeping in his pillow, weeping in his pillow.

© Matthew Harlovic

The pipes froze as the toilet overflowed
with pangs of guilt and bile bitten clothes.
She tried to dispose of what she ate
from breakfast to lunch to her snacks after eight.
From dieting to shame, infatuation came,
from the overwhelming pain of being herself.
Scared to ask for help, she took matters to her hands.
One to hold her hair, the other to her thyroid gland.

© Matthew Harlovic

Inviting security into your life
invites insecurity into your life.

© Matthew Harlovic

My half-life reflects
my active light, I’m as bright
as my afterlife.

© Matthew Harlovic

Chitter chatter,
pitter patters
against my ear drum.

© Matthew Harlovic

You spread lies around town like a dandelion.
Don’t try to hide it, it’s written in your iris
There’s no need to cry about the crisis now
because it’s all crystal clear like a cirrus cloud.

© Matthew Harlovic

Inviting security of the self,
invites insecurity within our lives.

© Matthew Harlovic

Once the positive trending tags
outweigh the negatives,
we’ll find continuity
within our contemplation,
our emotional state,
and our existence.
But as the negative trending tags
outweigh the positives,
our continuity will be conflicted.

© Matthew Harlovic

You are a galaxy.*
From the way gravity pulls your lips
back into a smile when you laugh
to your *stellar remnants of Vegas.
I thought it would take parsecs
for two distant galaxies to even come
into visual morphology with one another
but we collided into an elliptical love
that is practically observable
throughout the universe.
And as we fall farther into space,
we grow closer together because galaxies
are gravitationally bound to one another.

© Matthew Harlovic

To understand anything, even yourself,
you must live with it, you must observe it,
you must know all of its content,
its nature, its structure, its movement.
Try living with yourself, all your faults,
your functionalities, begin to see that you
are not living in a static state,
you are constantly changing.
But do not get caught up in opinions,
judgments, and values.
Live with yourself.
Learn about yourself.
You must do this, in order,
to understand yourself.

© Matthew Harlovic

I cut my wrist on a blade of grass as I tried to bury the past.

© Matthew Harlovic

Ever since my birth,
her stretch marks
have caught my age
on sycamore skin.
If you were to
peel back her bark,
you could pin point
the years she spent
nurturing her saplings;
two fair oaks,
pitted like pine needles,
that ***** her fingers
every so often.
But she does not
weep like a willow,
she continues to give
her life away to raise them.

© Matthew Harlovic

Yesterday, she caught her curves
in the center of her palms.
She cuddled the skin
and coddled the effort
that she put in
to make it shrink
but she still thinks
it made no difference.

© Matthew Harlovic

I put the Matt in matter
because I believe I do
but don't tread on me
or wipe off your shoes.

© Matthew Harlovic

To the naked eye,
the beehive cluster clutches
kin of lunatics.

© Matthew Harlovic

The centaur; he who
channels two halves together
on an arrow's quill.

© Matthew Harlovic

Medicine: a metaphor
for the meta-commentary
narrating your thoughts
before you even think.
Ask your shrink,
if you think
you’re in control of your thoughts.
Temporarily you are not.

© Matthew Harlovic

You use ink for your skin. I use ink for my notebooks.
But it seems to me that we have a common interest.

© Matthew Harlovic

“The side of her head is shaved,
isn’t that weird?”
Afraid to admit my attraction,
I nodded in agreement.

And in a low voice
I responded with,
“yeah, weird…”
Yet again he pointed out,

“Look at her septum piercing!
Doesn’t she look like Benny the Bull?”
I looked away. Under my breath
I said, “I think…she’s cute.”

My friend turned
with simpering eyes.
“Really? Cute?
You’re a ****** too.”

I looked up, “I’m not weird.
I just think she’s pretty,
that’s all.”
He scoffed,

“Nah man, you’re really weird.
Tattoos and piercings aren’t attractive,
they’re weird but I guess weirdos
are attracted to other weirdos.

Flustered, I looked up to him.
“So what?  Punk rock is pretty.
At least I’m not a pretentious ******* like you.”
And with that, I left him there.

© Matthew Harlovic

I hope that you will live happily ever after me.

© Matthew Harlovic

Prom:* the fabled dance that
every student looks forward to
at the end of their senior year
and looks back to every year.
I remember my prom,
the one I didn’t go to*
instead, I went out with
the girl that I fell for
and her younger brother
to the silver screen.
It wasn’t magical
but it was something
that I’ve remembered to this day.

© Matthew Harlovic

Seconds turn to minutes,
minutes turn to hours,
hours turn to days,
days turn to weeks,
weeks turn to weakness
and I give in.

© Matthew Harlovic

I'm here for you,
always and forever.
Whoever you are,
wherever you are,
just know,
I'm here for you.

© Matthew Harlovic

I may clothe myself,
but it is not out of shame,
it’s for the weather.

© Matthew Harlovic

For every two steps forward, you take one step back,
but you are still one step further from where you were at.

© Matthew Harlovic

Astraea ascends
for innocence entails love,
goodbyes are the worst.

© Matthew Harlovic

Ever since my birth,
her stretch marks have caught my age
on sycamore skin.

© Matthew Harlovic

I've said, "I'm sorry."
More than I've said, "I love you."
I'm sorry for that.

© Matthew Harlovic

I'm such a loser.
I've lost almost everything
but I won't lose her.

© Matthew Harlovic

It is selfish but
we long for stability.
Someday, we will die.

© Matthew Harlovic

A recording booth is nothing more than another padded room.

© Matthew Harlovic

The front seat is full
of coffin nails, Bic lighters,
and mutilation.

©  Matthew Harlovic

Grab a barrel cause,
if life is like a river
then there is a cliff.

© Matthew Harlovic

It's acquiescent,
to grieve for what you don't have,
your losses will pay.

© Matthew Harlovic

You told me that if you drink
before 10 A.M. you were a pirate
not an alcoholic.
But pirates don’t drive,
they sail.
They smoothly sail.
And as the Captain,
abiding by the code,
you went down with your ship
but then again,
you washed up in a jail cell.

© Matthew Harlovic

I think I'm crazy.
The space by me is *spinning,
and I'm seeing stars.

© Matthew Harlovic

Take a little
puff, puff,
before you
pass, pass
judgment.

© Matthew Harlovic

Head held high, flexing the shell
bright lifestyle, I know it too well.
It’s a tall tale to tell but its best that you know
that things get better at the end of the road
Not too long ago, I felt the same way
I dealt with demons that crept in the grey
And maybe it’s hard enough to ask for help
but it’s harder to watch yourself
give up once you’ve left the shelf

Nah, I couldn’t stomach the pain
like a trumpet, I blew the in out of sane.
I popped open a vein to paint my blues, violet
and threw a pair of cans on to block out the silence.
I’m not defiant; I defy any tyrant
that tries to buy my compliance.
I ride with the giants, stride like Midas
minus the greed, all I need is kindness.

Spread your wings; shed the ego
live amid the kings like a needle.
Be your own hero, succeed the sequel
take charge, zero in on the easel.
Reach for the stars, you are an artist
Van Gough goals; erase all the hardships.
I may try my hardest
but I’m not the smartest
but good work ethic leads to a harvest.
Reap my carcass, long after I’m gone,
brains over brawn, shame on you all
for thinking that these walls can hold me in.
You get the memo? I’m better than I’ve ever been.
Binge drinking is a sickness in itself
try to **** the pain but the pain kills the help
as well as low thinking it will **** your brain cells
if you try to **** the pain, you will **** yourself

© Matthew Harlovic

Smoke rings around the rosie,
a pocket full of posies,
ashes to ashes,
Ashley fell ashen.

© Matthew Harlovic

'As toddlers we sat on that
timber floor, playing like wolves.
You tugged on my collar,
lifted my chin and made a promise
that we would be brothers
till death did you part.
But death didn’t do a part
in breaking up our pack.
Throughout the years you taught me
how to hunt and gather
my props, you taught me
how to front and swagger,
you wanted me to be at my best
before you left. But you never told me that
you had to leave.
Then when you started to stray, I tried to trail
your footprints, thinking that you were just
past that tree line waiting for me to catch up.
But the farther that I went, the farther
we grew a part. I can forgive you
for never giving me a warning
but those years that I fought
as a lone wolf still haunt me.

© Matthew Harlovic

I’ve been babbling in Babylon with all the scholars
dabbling with dreamers,
thinking like a toddler,
mocking the monsters
dancing at the masquerade
and walking with the wickens waiting for my wake.
I’ve been rambling in Rome,
hanging with the hippies,
skipping some stones,
gambling with gypsies
getting dizzy with the drunken monks,
putting pity parties on for the pacified punks.

© Matthew Harlovic

That porch was where we returned during summer’s twilight
to plaster another memory into our childhood chronicles
Where we sat next to each other
while ice cream drizzled down our lips
And we clashed philosophies like Socrates and Plato as
fireflies sputtered their light in the gloom
Where she delicately hemmed BFF into my skin
and we thought that our friendship couldn’t, wouldn’t rift.
But, when the school bells rang
our friendship became a scalpel in which we
twisted incisions in, together, for the last time
to retrace the alphabet. Forever isn’t to be.

© Matthew Harlovic

Crescent moon eyelids
flatter her milk-stained halo
is she an angel?

© Matthew Harlovic

Raindrops
will drive
you *wild
if they hit
the same
spot…

© Matthew Harlovic

I bottle up my emotions
and then ship them downstream.

© Matthew Harlovic

And on my darkest days
my scars seem to glow

© Matthew Harlovic

I roll my eyes back
to find the third one.

©  Matthew Harlovic

Buddha was the broken hourglass
that spilled seconds across my backyard.
Mother Earth scolded him for his slipup,
so I smoothed her over with my minute hands.
She told me that he who skips an interval
needs to double back his ticks
so, grain by grain, tick by tock.
She rewound my hands to round out
the stonewashed garden that was being fabricated.
So I steadily swept shards of seconds
under the rugged rug of ill will.
I riddled ripples within her granular skin,
skidded stones across her carved clock
face fitting ****** features together like cogs.
Buddha shook the soil off
and fixed his gaze on my clockwork.
He explained that patience is key
if one wants to harvest his feast.
Before the goods go about,
pivots and rivets need to tie together.
Mother Earth collected her thoughts
and agreed with his concept.
I finished my work, stepped back,
admiring the hourglass I rebuilt.