One year ago today, I was a cow named Clare,
living on a farm in Kentucky,
blindly milked by blind and horrible men
for the blind and impulsive consumer.

My mother and I planned to leave,
hitchhike to Newark International Airport,
and hijack a plane to India,
where we would experience immeasurable levels of respect and adulation
for the rest of our lives.

We enlisted the help of our pet pigeon, Courier,
who flew around the world,
acquiring useful information pertaining to our plans,
and relaying this information to us.
Courier was a brave and loyal bird.

One day, I couldn't find my mother.
I assumed she'd forgotten about me,
and left on her own;
cows do silly things when they get old.

But Courier searched the entire state of Kentucky,
and found nothing;
there wasn't a single report of a cow
standing on the side of the road
trying to hitch a ride all week,
and no mention of a cow in any newspaper.

Not even the National Enquirer,
the Alex Jones show,
or anything put out by Rupert Murdoch's international media empire.
People hadn't even eaten cheese that day!

"What a horrible day to be a bovine!"
I exclaimed,
to which Courier replied,
"but isn't every day?"
We have a dark sense of humor.

That was when I saw the rooster;
the only rooster living on that prison we called a farm.
The rooster had no name,
and rarely spoke, if at all.

"I saw your mother,"
said the rooster,
"her eyes were closed and crooked;
her spirit, torn between two large and imposing vessels.
She's in rehabilitation; she's us.
She's in rehabilitation; save us.
She's playing dead."

I got up; it was late in the evening.
I put on my shoes, and I took a walk.
I was thinking about a story that had yet to be written.

I don't remember exactly how I met you,
but there was something wrong with our hair.
It was getting in the way of something, and you didn't like it.
We walked into the park; it was raining.

You said someone you know is hoping
that you can follow me
into the end of the day,
where it's always sort of raining.