American Fever Dream
by Isaac George Lauritsen
I dream of an open door
in a house that was dreamt for me
and in the yard that came with the house
bounds the dog that came with the yard.
I was bred to be excited by someone else’s song.
It comes as decoration from the burning trees.
Captain General Malaise pokes his dirty head
from a plot of busted florals, says onwards!
so I venture out to buy a well-supported bed
as a god-sized thumb flips through a catalog
to make this autumn the amber I’m in.
⏕
There’s technology in walls
and wires handled by hands
attached to limitless feelings.
I’m nostalgic for a time I wasn’t in
when windows protected homes from
the paperpersons’ scrolls of news.
A headline stands in the phone light:
“CURRENT GENERATION: THE LONELIEST
THIS SIDE OF LIBERTY!”
I could charge a newsstand and pummel it
with a neighborhood of broken ceiling fans
then I remember the snail on the windowsill.
I named him Jackson, never uttered his name
and I named the windowsill Farewell.
⏕
My wallet beeps with vestibule. I enter a train
as municipal data. Once, I was small enough to know
nothing and now I’ve segmented the day.
People arrive in the future
hells of phone calls called morning.
No one sees the present celebrate.
The chairs refurbish as trees. A man washes
all his chickens. A nose is smashed with a war
of allergies called the air disguised as dandelions.
I tell myself: don’t go looking for why the trees
are singing, you Darwin-looking sentience.
I cry into my beard. There’s nothing else to do
on Thursdays but think of all October has to live for.
I admit it: my theory of the afterlife is one in which
loved ones use my bones for Halloween decorations.
I cannot find a skyscraper to invest in me.
I’m sorry. My price is the size of December.
⏕
I cannot stop misreading the word “sacred”
as “scared.” There’s a Jesus-looking scarecrow
in every church-tilled thought.
I lost so much money investing in fear.
My discomfort was apparent in the college course
“Megaphonics in Late Capitalism”
where I projectiled in place of enunciation.
Our nerves save the economy at night.
Money is a wealth of thoughts fleeting
and keeping us sleepers from sleep. We invest in
slasher films. They feature our bank accounts.
⏕
When the news arrives that Oklahomans learned to speak
Klingon, I diminish myself to “uh-oh” and consider
the shit storm of English.
All languages begin like television:
exciting, colorful, for the people.
My phone buzzes
and I have myself some Internet. I scroll a grizzly
through this planet which ships to me a breath of air.
⏕
Dumbfounded by my inability to participate
in Friday, I cannot stop destroying the party.
I find myself a floorboard and escape into
a break. I find a forgotten sea between the floor
and ceiling. I breathe among pissed off starfish.
I swim among ratty orcas and the Wall Street of coral.
No one believes me when I emerge soaked in my own waters
that that’s where I had been: elsewhere, denying drowning.
⏕
“Love will save us in the end.”
Pronouncements of love will save us for a time
if we’re convinced we’re in the movie that taught us
how to love. When you produce spittle
while frantically explaining clouds, it makes me want
to write in legal terms,
I’m the biggest fan of your frantic fascinations.
On our way to the courthouse, a whole highway
of flowers and cake on the wind.
We can have as much as our car-sized fists can carry.
We can tell each other, I need you to be kind and breathing
and please leave me alone sometimes.
We can get pumped about snacks and newborn dogs.
We can wear our hats against the plastic sun.
in a house that was dreamt for me
and in the yard that came with the house
bounds the dog that came with the yard.
I was bred to be excited by someone else’s song.
It comes as decoration from the burning trees.
Captain General Malaise pokes his dirty head
from a plot of busted florals, says onwards!
so I venture out to buy a well-supported bed
as a god-sized thumb flips through a catalog
to make this autumn the amber I’m in.
⏕
There’s technology in walls
and wires handled by hands
attached to limitless feelings.
I’m nostalgic for a time I wasn’t in
when windows protected homes from
the paperpersons’ scrolls of news.
A headline stands in the phone light:
“CURRENT GENERATION: THE LONELIEST
THIS SIDE OF LIBERTY!”
I could charge a newsstand and pummel it
with a neighborhood of broken ceiling fans
then I remember the snail on the windowsill.
I named him Jackson, never uttered his name
and I named the windowsill Farewell.
⏕
My wallet beeps with vestibule. I enter a train
as municipal data. Once, I was small enough to know
nothing and now I’ve segmented the day.
People arrive in the future
hells of phone calls called morning.
No one sees the present celebrate.
The chairs refurbish as trees. A man washes
all his chickens. A nose is smashed with a war
of allergies called the air disguised as dandelions.
I tell myself: don’t go looking for why the trees
are singing, you Darwin-looking sentience.
I cry into my beard. There’s nothing else to do
on Thursdays but think of all October has to live for.
I admit it: my theory of the afterlife is one in which
loved ones use my bones for Halloween decorations.
I cannot find a skyscraper to invest in me.
I’m sorry. My price is the size of December.
⏕
I cannot stop misreading the word “sacred”
as “scared.” There’s a Jesus-looking scarecrow
in every church-tilled thought.
I lost so much money investing in fear.
My discomfort was apparent in the college course
“Megaphonics in Late Capitalism”
where I projectiled in place of enunciation.
Our nerves save the economy at night.
Money is a wealth of thoughts fleeting
and keeping us sleepers from sleep. We invest in
slasher films. They feature our bank accounts.
⏕
When the news arrives that Oklahomans learned to speak
Klingon, I diminish myself to “uh-oh” and consider
the shit storm of English.
All languages begin like television:
exciting, colorful, for the people.
My phone buzzes
and I have myself some Internet. I scroll a grizzly
through this planet which ships to me a breath of air.
⏕
Dumbfounded by my inability to participate
in Friday, I cannot stop destroying the party.
I find myself a floorboard and escape into
a break. I find a forgotten sea between the floor
and ceiling. I breathe among pissed off starfish.
I swim among ratty orcas and the Wall Street of coral.
No one believes me when I emerge soaked in my own waters
that that’s where I had been: elsewhere, denying drowning.
⏕
“Love will save us in the end.”
Pronouncements of love will save us for a time
if we’re convinced we’re in the movie that taught us
how to love. When you produce spittle
while frantically explaining clouds, it makes me want
to write in legal terms,
I’m the biggest fan of your frantic fascinations.
On our way to the courthouse, a whole highway
of flowers and cake on the wind.
We can have as much as our car-sized fists can carry.
We can tell each other, I need you to be kind and breathing
and please leave me alone sometimes.
We can get pumped about snacks and newborn dogs.
We can wear our hats against the plastic sun.
Isaac George Lauritsen is a writer and illustrator. His work can be found, or is forthcoming, in Bennington Review, Hobart Pulp, Jabberwock Review, Sidereal Review, TIMBER, Your Impossible Voice, on a broadside from Octopus Books, and elsewhere. He lives in New Orleans.