the day i never asked for but got

Red blood spatter berries
next to morning spatter dew
on the spindly arms of trees I see
every day, but really only saw today,

Today when I look
at the automata of academia,
I don’t just notice
that the heads-down,
one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-walk
is the same as any other day,
but I think of the disparities
of thoughts in those heads too,
and in mine.

I think about why I follow
these curvilinear paths
rather than the shortest distance
between two points theory
of lawn-traversing.
I think about what I’m thinking about:
what it would be like
if it rained backwards,
how many crumpled cigarette butts
were once mine,
and how many more will be.

I think about measurements of time
and increment
and what are the conversion units
of admiration to adoration?
and if love is even about quality over quantity.

And I write this poem as I walk,
knowing my walk is prose
but the way I walk is poetry.

I think of how I let everyone down
(including myself)
as I walk back to my room,
wrecked from a night of bad decisions.
And I think that as potent as these thoughts are now,
they will dilute with alcohol and time,
So why not say I’m fine? I’m fine.