[I will not follow you down the rabbit hole. Not even for love.]

I wish I could grind you down to a pulp

And remake you in the image of a better man.

That's harsh, isn't it? To be juiced in a kitchen

By mechanical hands, to leak blood instead of

Citrus into a waiting bowl. To be served out

To strangers with gaping mouths painted

The reds and yellows of fledgling birds

Sitting on their own fat, waiting to be fed.

How does that feel when you mull it over?

Are you the apple or are you the press, love?

Because I've been both and god does it make

Me angry to be the shiny apple at your side,

Because god do I want to be that shiny thing,

That trinket that impresses and competes and

Blends and enhances like the fine jewelry

We can't afford. I've been taught to be an

Accessory somehow. I've been taught

To compare myself to ghosts and ask

If my lips are softer than theirs

I did it all for you, love, I stomached disease.

I breathed in miasmic air and coughed,

And coughed, and though I escaped the plague

Of your house the plague of your house still

Fell upon me, fell upon me hard, though

I never once felt a fever but the one inside my head

And when I couldn't breathe it was because

Of memories clogged in my throat instead of

Phlegm.

I would sell my soul to not be so afraid.

It is a prison I was born into and I grew into

And I left at maturity, weeping, carrying the

Chains out into the street. Blocking traffic.

Conspicuous orange clothing, tacky, coarse.

But no one honked and no one looked and

No one saw. So I forgot and I lived my life

Under the shadow cast by barbed wire on

Concrete on a sunny day. I forgot.

And then I remembered.

And then I forgot.

Because it always comes back.

It's in my cells, love, the rabbit's urge to run

And burrow. I pound the ground to dust

When I see the warning signs when I see him

Wearing your skin. Smiling your smile.

You scared me. You made me want to race

Back to the dark, damp earth where my kin sleep.

You had been the den, before, but I saw with

My own eyes your nose elongate into a snout

And your pretty eyes slant upwards.

I saw my lover turned into a predator.

Because you consume. Don't you see? You eat,

And eat, and eat, and it's all trying to fill that

Hole your father dug in the backyard. When

He buried the fox you would someday become,

Handing you both your manhood and your grave.

It's all trying to fill the space of an empty wedding

Band, of empty talk, of empty promises and years

Where what should have been and what were

Fought like vicious dogs in the front yard of that

Small, claustrophobic house.

I might be a rabbit but I hate being buried.

I am not dead yet. The earth cannot have me.

Can you?

Maybe, maybe, the wind whispering uncertainties

That chap my lips and make my face red and raw.

I wish you knew you are strong enough to kneel

At the feet of every false idol and kiss their sandals.

I wish you knew you were strong enough to let the

Lions maul you and do nothing, nothing at all.

I wish you were strong enough to accept the love

Offered by honest hands without testing them for poison.

I wish, more than anything, that you knew this

Is all because you are a rabbit, too, and your

Warren is your mind where you hide behind

Intellectual fallacies and prepubescent defense

Mechanisms a first year psych student could

Untangle.

And yes, I'm angry.

You are better than this.

Aren't you? I want to believe you are better than this.

Say it with me, love: I am always called to the running.

I was taught young to run, to run, to run,

Inside deeper and deeper into myself until I

Collapse into infinite density and no light can

Escape. Until I become a vortex that disturbs

The night sky and shifts gravity in unholy ways.

I was taught that love means disaster and pain

Is never-ending and the only thing I have to rely on

Is my own three pounds of raw, thinking flesh.

So now you rotate around your own axis.

I'll tell you now, I will not be your moon.

I am not a peripheral object and I am not a

Follower. I am a world shaker. I am a rain bringer.

I have healer's hands and words that could make

You weep if you possessed poetry enough to

Understand them.

Now you rage, and simmer, and burn, and boil over,

And the whole house stinks of your char,

Because you still think you're eight and they're

Giants come to gobble up your childish heart.

Love, I understand. I do. But we aren't children anymore

And you cannot go on spinning like this without

Spinning out. I cannot save you and to be honest,

I won't try. I learned young you cannot shift large

Cosmic bodies without falling into their gravity wells

And crawling out of just one has taken me a decade

I don't have that kind of time, love.

I need to grow up, at least, before I die.

I'm asking you to come with me.

Put the knife in your own hide and skin yourself

Until the rabbit fur is just a scarf for the cold of winter.

Be raw muscle and bare bones, be the scaffold

Better memories might be built on.

Be someone who's worth repeating.

All your rage is fear and all your fear

Does is trap you inside your own cavernous self.

You will become your own echo if you aren't

Careful. The selfish, callous, pseudointellectual

Bastard you call your ego will obliterate the

Garden growing in your hollow chest

And all that fertile soil will become a wasteland.

Be brave, love, always be brave.

There are ten million foxes and one day they'll catch us,

But not today. Dare to be humble, to be sorry, to be wrong.

Dare to love without fear and give without taking and

Demand authenticity instead of the artificial shells we've

All built to protect our soft flesh from splinters and spears.

Be revolutionary and prove them wrong.

Be better than they ever were, and call it revenge.

Call it escaping. Call it standing still and watching the fire

In the distance without smelling the smoke, without breathing

It in.

Let's go fight dragons together. Let's be pirates

And murderers and perverts and scholars and lovers

And teachers and trees growing somewhere soft and

Quiet. Let's be honest and open and catch the new

Rain in our mouths before it turns to acid.

Let's be something beautiful amidst the wreckage

They made of their bodies.

Let's be the selves we are when we're alone in the

Dark and nothing is real but the safety of open arms.

Let's be better:

I dare you.

Because it's time you stopped running.