They say I’m a burnout,
they say I’m brain-dead
but I’m proud I turned out,
with a light above my head.

© Matthew Harlovic

White powder on an iPhone case
Black coffee to mask the taste
Rolled bills against my face
Usually no one keeps pace

Sometimes I believe I've gone insane.
My allies made over a pile of *******.
Veins burning awaiting more.
Eyes sore, but my feet seem to slide over the floor.

Heart pounding, nerves firing.
Tiring, not exhausting.
A workout for the burnout.
I have few hopes as to what I’ll turn out.

Only a mind away.
Numb, but alive.
I only feel what I'm prescribed
I’ll press on, needle to a record.

**** that.
I’m digital, my ideas, critical.
I’ll wake up each day with an eye for new breath.
I’ll keep moving forward, alone or in union, i’ve got a plan, and I’m gonna seek it.
Brick by brick, my world, I’ll build it.

As long as it doesn't hurt,
I want you to imagine watching me being torn apart,
by powerful galloping stallions in a crowd full of naive people.
   As I'm torn,
my deepest darkest secrets that only you know,
come pouring out.
   You have become protective of these secrets because you have helped keep them for so long.
so you can feel my pain as the incidence unfolds before your eyes,
there is nothing you can do but watch and feel.
   This is why I burnout and freakout,
every time I hear the word councillor or support,
it's like someone taking your job and getting respect for not knowing it like you did.

I asked you to **** me quick,
You told me that you already tried,
And all your assassin's had failed.
And I'd have taken a gun to my head,
A long time ago accept that,
You made me promise to stick around.

I'm too young to be a burnout,
I'm too young to hurt this much.
They're teaching me how to learn,
I'm teaching myself to breathe,
While I'm pretending not to drown.

I've stopped sleeping and I've forgot how to dream,
It makes it hard to think for myself.
And I should've listened when they said,
Don't give your heart to the first pretty stranger,
Because they took it and ran and now,
I can't remember how to feel.

The stars are falling.

Creating comets that streak my cheeks
And fall into a space that I can’t remember.

Forming at my feet are static clusters from their burnout-
Fading against the background into nothingness.

Before-
“Run! Come on their gonna catch us!”
We really messed up this time.
Whose idea was it to smash
the mailboxes? Deface the school
parking lot? Jesus Ch-
“Is that mom’s car?”
JESUS CHR-
“Nevermind.”

After-
“Three for seventy or five for seventy-five. Best deal in town.”
We really messed up this time.
Who forgot the lighter and
and cash? Where’s the hell
are the papers? What the f-
“Are these sugar?”
WHAT THE FU-
“Nevermind.”

Before-
“Shut up! He’s gonna see us!”
We really messed up this time.
Who thought throwing popcorn
at the cute movie theater boy
was a good idea” Oh sh-
“He’s looking over here!”
OH ****-
“Nevermind.”

After-
“***** tastes better straight.”
We really messed up this time.
Who bought Smirnoff? We
wanted UV. Where are the
shot glasses? Son of a-
“I think this stuff is expired…”
SON OF A B-
“Nevermind.”

Before-
“We had a test?!”
I really messed up this time.
When did we even take notes?
I don't remember the what
we even went over. God da-
“Yeah, he said its worth 20% of our grade.”
GOD DAM-
“Nevermind.”

After-
“What is going on?!”
We really messed up this time.
The room smells like substance.
Curtains closed- eyes closed.
Broken orange bottles- Bu-
“He took too many!”
Burn-
“He’s not waking up!”
Burno-
“Call someone!”
BURNOUT.



“Nevermind?”





Before-
“This is the best day of my life.”
We are okay this time.

It sounds ridiculous but only I feel productive when I'm doing nothing.
Sitting back, just relaxing.
Popping blue beans, burning bowls of green.
And just thinking.
Daydreaming about how things could have been.
How things could still be.
But how things will probably be.
Just close your eyes and let music be your guide.

Entire lives constructed and played out
in grand fashion. A world so detailed
I would rather get lost,
And never come back to this travesty of a society,
so raw and primal.
so human.
My world is so beautiful and yet so depressing
because it's what ours could be, but never will become.
Anything to distract me from this.
The 24 year old burnout grinding through school because there aren't many options left.
So where will I'll be in 5 years?
I wont.

I've been running on empty
Skipping on dregs
Cycling on morsels
Jumping on egg
shells


It's time to recoup
regroup  
renew, restore,
build more
reserves
Surrender to slumber
And swerve
Away from activity
Simply
pause,


And deeply breathe.

stuck in the same place
over and over
I'm growing tired
faded, to look at the other end
A non-existent thread,
to yours— bled red
something I put up tying to mine
to yours— an invisible line

For once I am lost for words,
hollow, empty of a shell with no home
as we are living in different worlds
I will never see you by the doorstep

We're like two matchsticks
you used to burn up my flames
my eyes lit up looking at you—
burning with passion
wasting no gasoline,
my heart you filled up the brim
— now it's a heart burnout

I used to hold on
and vision it clearly up ahead
with you holding my tired hand
with me looking up to smile
my heart used to race a thousand mile
how is it now this came too soon?
now it's just faded
a scene that's white noise filled
you're fading to black quickly

For once I don't see you
standing on the other side
I've held loose of the rope

I'm no longer scared
or anxious
of what we will come about
A future without you
with these feelings wavering—
How come I vision this clearly?

A story with no ‘we’—
An ending page
and from the beginning
that's where
we're supposed to stand in line

checking potent aftershock
observing seismic anniversary
checking another tremor
resuming constrained writing

annexing hidebound constituents
hugging incoming eschatologies
fighting pervasive insomnia
battling invasive fatigue

damning incompetent fools
awaiting furtive escape
abandoning corporate wasteland
summoning celestial syzygy

detesting spaghetti code
protruding riparian dolphin
establishing unilinear escritoire
glowing cybernetic cynosure

avoiding eternal invisibility
supporting valued customer
performing lexical gymnastics
scrooping notification sounds

restoring usual happiness
glorifying darkwave fanfares
collapsing old relationships
raising ambient awareness

defining wolf people
propagating yesteryear's spectre
achieving hemispheric virality
testing weekend legerity
installing iron curtain

propagating today's spectre

developing niche audiences
transmitting abstract propaganda
disappearing thought experiments
overusing various condiments

double-checking hyper-real emotions
rubbernecking celestial explosions
observing splendid holiday
exploding volcano day

erupting bucolic mountain
disrupting hectic shouting
perfecting suggestive triptychs
checking festive pyrotechnics

drifting across multiverse
regifting glossy paperwork
writing six-lined hexagrams
liking two-toned instagrams

recalling pygmalion sculptures
brawling tatterdemalion cultures
"rambling corporate shill
rattling rapid prosody"
"battling hamburger hill
ambling hundredth library"
"sensing ideological schism
pending guttural neologism"

glowing verdant background
foreshadowing palmyra takedown
developing geopolitical mess
geminating quasi-couplet stress

"hugging cultural diversity
shrugging irrational adversity"

distancing spooky raindrops
avoiding potential burnout
implementing lexical databank
approaching crash-scene sudser

becoming increasingly selective
escaping tyrannical bureaucracy
perpetuating cut-throat capitalism
purchasing contrived happiness
incorporating chance elements
relaxing rigid structures
reheating your retweet

holding theoretical design
smiling beach life
scrutinizing eternal simulation
rushing artificial apothegm
annexing facetious document
freaking creepy centipedes

writing neural structure
congratulating yestreen's warriors
encouraging seatbelt usage
boosting abstract setting
sensing frivolous ochlocracy

keeping hypothetical metropolis
blurring metaphorical æsthetic
scrutinizing computational festival
memorializing towel day

raising six-fingered paw
eternizing fragment schedule
liking subtextual repository
quoting quintessential quidnunc

finding ideological style
disregarding their slovenliness
planning spatial factoid
spinning glacial ellipsoids

enjoying eternal spreadsheet
deleting repetitive tweet
awaiting festival lineup
gainsaying unethical startups

observing turgid experiment
contemplating conniving contrivances
enjoying dynamic project
dropping two-toned simulation
finding harmonic space
finalizing warring cavaliers

detecting enigmatic apathy
retrieving potential exchange
meddling middling muddling
baking hypnagogic pizza

spinning galactic dinosaur
building trans-pacific partnership
finishing theoretical mission
giggling agog googlers

crashing atypical tessellation
cherishing precious hexagons
proliferating western lottery
cretaceousing funkaholic skeletor

blurring turgid gallery
cancelling tsunami warnings
extemporizing incoherent neologisms
transmitting harmonic rave

gliding black hawks
hiding quacked ducks
archiving animated light
googling moonbow imagery

ignoring relatable messages
observing unfinished world
generating optional content
continuing exponential growth