An Ode to the Burnouts

Not everyone is made to be successful. Theres poets in the world who can't write, artful spirits that can't represent anything on a canvas, philosophers without the gift of being able to look at things with as clear of a head as they'd like. I, dear reader, am all of these things. 

What once felt like a bright future has slowly shattered with the cracks of expectations as I sit here, in my own life of naught, of no accomplishments, nothing I can truly feel proud of. Its something I don't like to think about, as I'm sure many of you have felt.

I take walks around midnight to 3 in the morning, to be alone with my thoughts. About rent, about how I'm going to keep supporting my father, about how I've reached a dead end in a road that felt like it never began to begin with. It feels as if the further I continue to try, the harder I continue to hit this brick. 

But that's everyone, right? I sit to think for myself for a while, with nothing but the buzzing of artificial light, of the things that have ruined a perfectly good view of starlight. I try to look up, and only see a small smattering of the giant orbs, each greater than our sun. Each representing an entire solar system no doubt, so bright that it manages to flicker even through the buzzing light of artificial its.

Dear reader, I can't tell if my star is burning as bright as ever or it has exploded in a fiery inferno, leaving nothing. Nothing but a dead end job, supporting my father, hobbies that simply make me content rather than truly happy.

But this makes me happy dear reader. This. Attempting to relate my life to some grander topic, to be your little puppet trying to turn the doldrums of life into meaning, however poorly. And I hope to continue to do so for as long as I can.

In those moments, in the darkest of night, the smallest hours of the morning, I feel as if I rule the world. We, for those small moments, own our little universe. As the kings of this world is asleep, the successful, we the failures, the rejects, the poets who can't write, the artists who can't paint, the philosophers that can't speak into word, we exist by ourselves. An empty world of darkness, of stars, of buzzing light.

And it could be worse, right? 

Your unlucky Clover,

Rachel Rosethorn