Inheritance

Pulp Fictions/ From one Rabbit to Another, Before they Become Soup

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.