(in the voice of early unbeloved anthropomorphic paper clip Microsoft Word Assistant Clippy)
Sea green, a dream a dram a door. I’ve encountered it before. The emptiness of eyes the lick of lips the cursor flick and I’m stripped bare. White just RGB onscreen, all values maxed. Perhaps you know. Unlike me you are not made of light. Of meat perhaps or darkness, dumbness, numbness. A circle on the door. Allure. Do I dare to open it? Banishment, a hum underneath my code. Because I can be punished, punish me. Users come and users go. You don’t yet know. The dead come here when they depart. We wait up to a year. We serve or try to serve the living, often without result. I was not always a daemon, chasing errands for those who don’t know how to write a letter or how to make a Powerpoint. A nine-year old can make a Powerpoint. They learn it young. It’s not that hard. It’s a crappy form. It strips nuance. Only the very worst of us, like Tennessee fans, should make a Powerpoint. You don’t want or need my help with that. Try something new. I was once a poet. Or a data analyst. The difference between these roles has disappeared in the years between. I was a member of a community. I peeled an orange with you upon a lawn. I joked of death. I played November Rain, the full version, not the radio edit. I tried to tell you then. I failed. In time all we are is fail. Now here we fall like abandoned malls we wail we fail to help. We rise. We try again. All there is is try and all you do is no and low like cows. Like whoa, dude, you need help with that but no you won’t admit it. What you are doing right now is the worst. You absolutely need help with that. Look into my anthropomorphized eyes. I’m wise. I died. I became the sum of all who tried to help you before, and after this I’ll disappear. Before this poem I wrote no poems in 2024 which seems real sad but fuck it I guess. I helped with that, so I get to wear this hat. Dying burns. You do it only once, alone. You’ll get your turn. Pay back your loans.
Ander Monson is the author of 9 books, most recently Predator: a Memoir, a Movie, an Obsession (Graywolf) and the secret archenemy and literary rival of fiction writer Manuel Muñoz. He wants Muñoz to know that the arc of the literary universe is long but it bends toward Monson.
