shit show ⋆ bo burnham

02.

besides a brief zoom meeting with his manager this morning, bo found himself unsure how to spend his day. he knew he was meant to be conceiving ideas for an upcoming project, but the notion of doing that was a loaded gun waiting to take him out. nothing was as straining as trying to create something much bigger than he was.

one thing he was certain of was the fact that y / n had already polluted every crevice of his cerebrum since the moment his eyes had welcomed daylight this morning. promptly after seeing the notification from her just the night before, he found himself making a beeline for his bed and pushed the idea of reconnecting with her to the furthest part of his skull, suppressing any other impulsive decisions he might've made. id est, messaging her, or commenting, or even just liking another one of her posts — on purpose.

he still hadn't checked his phone since putting it down. bo hadn't even allowed it to charge overnight. it took a while for him to accept the consequences of his actions; he did everything in his power to stay away from his mobile device. bruce, now clonked out from exhaustion on the couch, had been walked around the block nearly five times today as a distraction from the looming thought of her, and it was only just past noon.

now preparing an ill-excuse of a sandwich for lunch, bo decided he needed to recollect and get over himself. the man was nearly thirty; one would think he'd be a bit more elegant than this. bo was, arguably, still just as naïve as he was ten years ago. inhaling deeply, he went back to his room to retrieve his phone, and sat at his kitchen table with his piss-poor attempt at a turkey and cheese sandwich. healthy and balanced, just as the doctor ordered.

bo took a bite, then took a glance at his phone's lock screen.

a couple emails, news updates, a reminder to update his phone, and . . . a message.

"jesus christ." bo could barely make out his words due to a mouth full of food, but the maturity and courage he gained had fled out the window just as quickly as it had arrived. "bruce, i've really done it this time."

he sighed heavily, subconsciously tearing off a piece of the turkey in his sandwich and handed it off to the companion at his feet. while bruce indulged in the treat, bo pressed his palms to his eye sockets, rebuilding the tenacity he so quickly lost.

another long exhale, and he was doing it. bo reached for his phone and brought it to his face to absorb every bit of his current fear in it's entirety. bo unlocked his phone screen, and tapped on the message.

@ y / n  :  was that supposed to be a gesture? or was the robert pickering burnham lurking on my profile?

bo couldn't tell if he wanted to laugh, panic, or do both and then die. this was the first time she had spoken to him in four years, and her first words were accusing him of being a creep.

he deserved it.

hesitantly, bo began typing a response back. he contemplated his words for several minutes before hitting send.

@ boburnham  :  what's the correct answer?

he had lost his appetite. bo peeled the rest of the turkey off his sandwich and blessed bruce with the treat, before tossing out the rest and moving towards a desk he had been working at. journals and papers piled on the corner of it, threatening an avalanche of ideas, blunders, and wordplay. admittedly, it was slowly becoming formidable.

he couldn't decide if it was the desire to take his mind off y / n or, rather, an internal spark of panic, knowing he should have been working all morning instead of insisting bruce needed to be excessively walked -- either way, he reached for his pencil and his most recent victim of a journal, skimming through the manic ideas he had scribbled down the last time it was in his hands.