today i decided i was a new person, today i decided i would walk along the sidewalk and find where i wanted to stop walking, today i walked three blocks until someone asked me if i was all right i said yes but i stopped walking and sat down they asked if they needed to call someone if i wanted an ambulance i said no and stood up and kept walking, today i breathed a little heavier, today i felt the spaces in between my ribs open up, today i left my wallet and keys on the counter just to the right of the old phone it’s beige i don’t know why it’s important but it doesn’t match the rest of the decor, today i realized it was off and i thought about moving it but i didn’t, today i noticed the row of houses eight blocks down falling apart someone broke the window finally threw a brick through it or something it always smells like skunk always not the animal you understand it’s an erogenous zone for illegal recreation it’s impossible to walk through without someone trying to sell you dank, today i bought an eighth for fifty i know not the best but it was enough, today i walked a few more blocks before i sat down again, today there was a bench i’d never seen before at the edge of the park fresh coat of a paint no splinters plastic maybe i couldn’t ever tell i’m bad at material identification i stained it me not the birds no shit caked the boards it was my mark mine i was there for years for what seemed like for years for the next couldn’t wait couldn’t stand up grew old with the boards the seat has mine entrenched, today i fed the geese corn kernels nothing else no bread bread doesn’t work bread just fills them up bread is empty bread is empty nourishment why fill the bellies when you can fill everything they can’t distinguish between corn and bread geese are stupid aggressive waterfowl who just want to survive and don’t care about the environment maybe i should have fed them bread that would show them, today i wished for a sign, today i performed CPR on myself, today i jumped off the bridge at the perfect moment but the water met my senses before nothing could, today i lifted my feet and took one step two three four like this see i walked i walked, today i walked and nobody followed me, today there were no will-o-wisps or antlered devils or reality checks just the road and its traveler the cracks between the tectonics of the sidewalk, today i was happy, today i was real, today i found my purpose, today i walked past the houses a second time and they were alive again a buggy drove past and a woman threw her handkerchief cold against my face, today was warm and wet and the thunderstorms murdered the drought like none other lightning lightning split split wracked wracked permanence the clouds will never come again the same way will they, today i returned to the bench and sat for another eternity the barnacles flecked my skin the mites ate their way in out in out again again it will never stop will it, today i pulled god down and asked that nicely to cut the haunts, today the cosmos would not oblige, today we made contact, today the aliens gave us fire, today the aliens gave us water, today the aliens, today the aliens, today they left and they'll never come back, today we listened to the old vivaldi back before the seasons started, today we noticed the storm movement was different less windy less rainy more bright, today the houses looked alive livable a triceratops roaming a cretaceous sea of grass a passenger pigeon a whale as large as the sun, today the woman in the window winked like she knew something was about to happen, today i was hit by a car, today i was hit by a bus, today i hit a train and it derailed sailed off into the horizon like a lost seagull, today nothing wanted to hit me when i cocked my pistol, today the gunpowder in my rifle caught, today the lead ball replaced my left eye and i saw deeper into the earth than anyone else had ever seen, today i collapsed to the sidewalk and someone asked me if i was all right i said yes but i stopped walking and sat down they asked if they needed to call someone if i wanted an ambulance i said no and stood up and kept walking, today i walked further than i had ever walked, today i remembered shel silverstein, today i remembered my father’s gnarled dogwood hands, today i remembered the way she held mine, today was for her, today i dug holes in the dark forget-me-nots grow in the shade twice as strong if you let them, today was a night instead, today breathed a dying king stuck in his golden highchair, today believed in itself like none other none i’d ever seen believe do you believe how do you believe, today, today i lost my footing running away still running into the frost into the downpour washed away the prints i’ll never see myself again will i? will i? will i? will i? will i? will i?, today was the worst one yet, today i slept through the morning the afternoon the evening the morning the afternoon the evening the nights never i never lose the nights, today i breathed fire for the first time since the temperature let it happen, today i wrote seven songs and sang them to the birds so they'd have some new material they sang back and now i know what everything is, today i am everything, today i glow, today is three million miles down underwater in the dark waiting for beasts the size of school buses to swim into the maw, today i am a hellmouth, today i am poseidon, today was the longest day of all time, today is not over.