Died Disappointed?

Do Not Seek The Treasure

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3481. Post-Threat

This is "Post-Threat." It's not thanksgiving no more, okay?

What an age! Balloon animal blood on the streets. Confetti poisoning so many drinks. We lock ourselves in cages and then cry out against our captors. Misery is tranquil—the sun, unknowing, sets on it daily. But it hasn't always been this way. There was a time I walked through the park with you, after a heavy rain, or just before it, who can remember—pre- or post-threat yield the same feeling. And I wondered, as you talked, if I had wandered into your dream, or you into mine.

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3480. Favorite Pet

This is "Favorite Pet." No more of this, thank you.

A memory that fogs the morning. A house fire that reveals all the hidden secrets. Your favorite pet reborn as an ant in a colony in the dirt of Ohio. You'll never know each other again, but that doesn't stop the All-Seeing Ones from keeping track. I had a dream I was the last balloon lingering in a great banquet hall, after some nonsensical party or other, bumping around up in the rafters. I'm not just saying these things to say them—I need you to frustrate yourself trying to make sense of it all.

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3479. A Very Specific Month

This is "A Very Specific Month." Ah man, the titillations!

I think I walked through every room as a child with regal fragility. I sat in the blue plastic chair, sipping from the Golden Apple. What wish hath you in thine own heart? What's that from? Does it matter if a movie gets some things wrong? Who made you the kingdom? When I was younger than I am now—in a very specific month in a very specific year—I was utterly and magnificently lucky. My dreams kept me awake at night...

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3478. Ten Years Ago

This is called "Ten Years Ago." I don't have your milk.

The ex-beauty queen schoolteacher was jailed. A reindeer carcass is being blamed for the recent anthrax outbreak. Four were executed by automated firing squad. Should lawmakers prevent hot car deaths? Killings of two mayors spur increased security. Can soccer be a success in the United States?

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3477. The Well

This is "The Well." It's dark out and summer.

I picked up the great short works of Leo Tolstoy today. Not to read it but to have it in my possession. I wanted to dream with frustrated optimism by my head. Sometimes this world feels not there, or else drawn by a bound and blinded painter. Sometimes I want to desperately be loved and depended upon like Lassie. Sometimes I want to be the well. Stop listening and give up. Worry! I can help you, but first I need to finish my happy meal.

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3476. Screwballish

This is called "Screwballish." A frantic tantra attack.

There's no neighbor with sugar here. Just empty streets and a large screwballish eye looking in while you shower. Are you in love yet? Are you happy? Or do you need more dream to dream? I think I'm just going to spin around in this chair some more, apolitically. I've never had a culture—but many crutches. Garçon, where is my very big pancake?

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3475. Bleak Joy

This is "Bleak Joy." Keeping to oneself is a masterpiece.

Spend the summer caring from afar for a fox with mange, while suffering from Lyme. Do the people who name our diseases feel pride? America is old and decrepit. Our cars all zip by on the desolate fingers of the Highway. This Love Hotel or that? The old organ still sits in the corner, unplayed but not silent. Truth is, I've died several times already. I've woken up a dapper, chittering beetle with no dreams, for godsakes! But nothing hurts more than bleak joy.

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3474. Conversations In The Mountains

This is "Conversations In The Mountains." Do you do discussion?

I've had conversations in the mountains, but I prefer what still can be. She kept having a dream that summer wherein a dogman would lick her asshole. Scroll through your messages before you say anything. It's morning again, bronze and new and still dirty. I think each day presents us with a new way of saying goodbye or hello or I love you or what the hell oh my god help me?!!!

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3473. Yammer On

This is "Yammer On." Always hello Dolly, never goodbye Dolly.

I woke up in a new house. This was the Saturday after beheading Macbeth. I had just finished a semester at the Sorbonne, learning how to cook the perfect Detroit-style pizza. Summer camp got canceled due to the murders. But no matter—I got a job calligraphing the sandwich board signs downtown. I adopted a little black dog called Homunculus. For some reason, everybody was predicting a "Technological Apocalypse Autumn." When I close my eyes, I can feel the eyes inside me still staring. It's like I found a golden ticket but never ended up using it. Forget all this yammering, I love you to death!

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3472. Not Being Here

This is "Not Being Here." You are the you you can't see.

Shane never lived to see the kinds of things you're complaining about. Another Shane perhaps, but not the Shane that's telling this now. Have we finally got flying cars? And are everybody's dreams lit up in neon in the desert? The cracker or the cookie, which prevailed? And who won the chicken sandwich wars? Our nudity goes with us. It's the only thing we have to defend us against the clarity of not being here.

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3471. New Angel

This is called "New Angel." Who wants to just stare with me?

Her paintings would always stare back at me. Eyes like knives plunged deep into me. I was never aware of it. I had no more time left to figure and quibble and analyze. In many ways, I'm still dancing in the ballroom of my childhood. Pepperoni and mustard sandwiches in summer. Going in the swimming pool and pretending I was stranded at sea. A big leaf that looked like a frilled lizard. Back then, I wouldn't know what would stay with me. You know nothing in childhood—and that's what makes you an emperor.

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3470. Old Masters

This is "Old Masters." A break in the water.

Somebody has drawn you, thought you up. But you've never met. The Old Masters used to say nothing was drawn by looking. Just feeling, thinking, eyes closed. I've spent nights wandering the blue halls of this empty, smoldering palace, not looking, just dreaming. It's summer again—a month more in the country of your acquaintance. Can we go back?

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3469. Fluffy Shadow

This is "Fluffy Shadow." Who's out there, in the dreams?

I was just a little bacon grabber. A goldfish with a secret. It was after a summer of no sleep...who's there...fluffy shadow. And what does it mean you've procured the one undedicated bench in this town to sit on? I've learned this the hard way. It's better to unquenchably yearn than to be unquestionably dead.

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3468. Being Reminded

This is called "Being Reminded." Envelopes to you.

My dog, Chopin, calls me on the phone. Don't forget the spaghetti, he says. Life is a series of being reminded. They made a movie about this once. Lambasted in its day, but subsequently praised. We need the fresh, soft eyes of youth. Oh I could just lie down on the rug all night and lament. But there's dinner to do, and if we're lucky, a soul-reviving dessert. Midnight treats. Dreams like flambé. Chopin says we've been here for many years as he drifts off to another sleep, next to his favorite humping toy.

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3467. Dancing Out Of Someone Else

This is "Dancing Out Of Someone Else." Gravel voice, smooth road.

I was—and still am!—bold and beautiful and fat and lazy. Driving my mail truck around autumnal Pennsylvania. I'd wake up in early morning mists, like dancing out of someone else's dreams. Take my hand. I'm alive!

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3466. Canvas In A Dark Room

This is "Canvas In A Dark Room." Soft balloon from here on out.

In the dark, nothing conventional will do. It's better to be shameless, slippery, and hard. Don't worry, someone out there will understand you. Someone in Ithaca, perhaps. Someone in Erie, maybe. Colors we can never see are arranging themselves onto a canvas in a dark room to create another masterpiece. What dream did I find you in? In what dream did I lose you?

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3465. Charade

This is "Charade." It's a painting even if you don't see it.

Can I wreck you with my divine, psychotic visions? Or simply recite to you some post-apocalyptic verse from my daydreams? I wish to live on an island with just a cow. That's it. A single wave rolling in in the evenings. Angels hiding in the clouds. Is there not somebody out there who can stop me from keeping up this charade? Some have tried, all have failed, but that doesn't mean I don't love them still. I could never love a successful person.