Caitlin Johnstone
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caitoz.bsky.social
Caitlin Johnstone
@caitoz.bsky.social
100% reader-funded. All works free to republish/use/translate. All works co-authored by Tim Foley.
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/
Treasure
Listen to a reading by Tim Foley:
www.caitlinjohnst.one
November 17, 2025 at 2:08 AM
“He is wrong,” you whisper
as the blood leaves your body.

“There is treasure everywhere.”
November 17, 2025 at 2:08 AM
“Ooh! THIS is treasure!”
“No that’s garbage. Put it down.”

And the boy’s vision changes
and he no longer sees the treasure in things.

He runs to join his dad
and they walk together down the shore

through a dying world
of fading wonder
full of worthless beach trash.
November 17, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Somewhere else there’s a small boy
who has just learned the word “treasure”.

“Look! Buried treasure!” he tells his dad.
“No. That’s just glass worn smooth by the sea.”

“Is that treasure?”
“No, that’s just a shiny candy wrapper
shimmering in the sun.”
November 17, 2025 at 2:08 AM
It is an elephant with an eyepatch and a prosthetic leg.
It’s a freshly emptied bed in the nursing home.

A hand offers you pills to numb the dissonance,
but you swat it away and howl naked in the thorns.

Somewhere there’s an ibis on a piano
in a junkyard in the rain.
November 17, 2025 at 2:08 AM
They want the mothers to stay at home while the fathers work 80-hour work weeks for ten bucks an hour so that billionaires can become trillionaires.
November 16, 2025 at 10:57 PM