rabbit

i met god at a park at 15. it was my hometown, but i'd never seen his face. i'd seen caricatures of him, but none of them look alike, and none looked like him. every week I'd bike to him, in the rain, in the snow, it never mattered. he gave me everything i was missing, all it took was swallowing a pill once a day. twice a day. three times a day. ten a day.

i met god in a hospital bed at 16. i'd stayed away for months, but he was back in the form of 60 sips of water. he filled me with ice while i floated in the dark, i can't express how cold. i saw myself from above; my limbs jerked, my heart bounced around my chest like a ball, my mother begged me to be still. that night, i almost stayed in purgatory.

i met god on the highway when i was 17. we'd taken a wrong turn, our wheel wrapped in grey exhales, the windows down, music loud. smoke became solid in my lungs when that semi didn't let us merge. when i shut my eyes in a still car, i still see the road block three inches from your bumper. i think in another life, a parallel universe, we all died right there.

i met god in a sketchy motel room when i was 18. my mouth was my cousin's ashtray, both in flavour and hydration. the closest person who knew any of us was two hours away, it was dark, and it was quiet. i couldn't keep my eyes open, i couldn't move my body. i saw new worlds on my eyelids, a better place than any i'd seen. i could barely hear the tv next to me, but the sound of the heater across the room turned into tv static in my stomach in its place.

she asked me what i do to relax, and for once, i had to think before i spoke. i remembered last thursday.

it had been a bad day. it was below freezing, and i felt the cement walls around me as if they were stuck parallel to my skin, inches away. i hadn't slept, i had been trying for hours. the only way i could find peace was poetry

i listened to sylvia plath read her works, but i was stuck on tulips. it had always been my favorite of hers, but that day it was a salve to the burning between my eyes. when i was fifteen, i listened to that audio for the first time, and it was something i hadn't known i was looking for.

i listened to it probably dozens of times, it wasn't ever enough. all i could do was lie there with my hands turned up, allowing myself to be utterly empty.

it's weird to miss someone you don't think you love anymore. all of my best memories are with you. why did you hurt me so often? you got me out of the ghost of a house and gave me a home. how did you move on so fast? you made me like myself. why did you stalk me online for months? it makes my stomach hurt to think about you.

i think i was right. in another lifetime, maybe it was just us. i almost wish the person i am now could meet the person you might be now. i think we'd get along better now, ironically. if you texted me right now, i'd smash my phone. if you texted me right now, i'd ask how you've been. i wish you'd been my friend, instead.

as a kid, i was pretentious as hell, ignorance and anger melded. my writing was different, my tone was malignant. it was all aabb format, and i was the victim of everything i spat. i recently found an old draft, a part of my past, forever photographed

"you're a carnival, anatomically correct, except what your heart can't accept. they watched as the jester wept, dancing with nothing left. his mother was stuck bereft, thinking he'd just overslept."

i started wearing rings again. just one for now, but it's starting to feel right to adorn myself once more. they don't fit how they used to, i've lost over forty pounds since i last wore them. i've been slicing up my fingers in my sleep, but i don't sleep with my knife anymore. i bandage my fingers every morning, so tight my fingers are purple and cold. it's nice having cold hands again.

my knee still hasn't healed. every time i walk, it pulls, sending a shockwave through my thigh, electrifying every action i carry out. my doctor told me it'll probably be a lifelong injury. what doctors don't tell you is how fast your body gets used to constant painkillers, how your own body starves for relief.

i feel centuries old already, and the pain is so mercurial that it can only be compared to my fourteen-year-old self. the kid with migraines so bad, he saw stars by noon, unable to speak, unable to breathe, unable to even lift my head. i was jonesing for the quick fix i believed a diagnoses could be. i longed to dream of my childhood, where i could run and jump with reckless abandon.

i didn't know how stomachs could knot until i was buried in rich amber hues. an unspoken promise i'll over-analyze until it means nothing, a concrete fortress so rushed the cinderblocks blur. every house is the same, except yours. it's warm inside, too warm.

dirty blond hair and eyes too similar to mine, i could spot you underwater. your voice cracked like a whip, but your smile could glow like a lantern on a ship lost at sea in the fog. the lighthouse is closer than the crew thinks. they'll never go home, and neither will you.

i got over my fear of heights when i was around fifteen. you make me wish i hadn't, in a way. you're the birds in the morning, and your voice echoes everywhere i go. a redefinition of green not just as a colour, but as a concept, you're so far up, you'll never come back down, no matter what anyone tries. i don't know if you want me to try.

i'm not even twenty and the world is collapsing. natural disasters, failing economies, shootings, corruption, it feels like a bad remake modeled around a teenager's cliche apocalyptic novel concept. i can only hope that i live long enough to see a peaceful, post- post-apocalyptic society.

when i was younger, dumber, and more pretentious, i'd tell you i was an anarchist. i'd get giddy at the idea of chaos, i'd get a rush thinking about a societal crash. the truth is, i was a kid who had no idea what the hell i was talking about.

as i know it, an anarchist society isn't possible. the idea of self-policing is dependent on honesty, trust, and every individual being naturally good. the fault lies in human nature. after all, if all humans were inherently good and moral, which is already a very touchy and subjective matter, then society's issues wouldn't exist. and if society's problems didn't exist, there wouldn't be a need for anarchy, we wouldn't need to change.

for most of his life, all he wanted was to make people laugh. he didn't care if he was liked or not, all he needed was laughter. he saw how it touched others, how people remembered when they laughed. he wished so desperately to be the performer.

he switched costumes and crutches monthly, always chasing the high of a smile. he tailored his personality, his looks, his affect. he didn't recognize the face in his mirror, but it was one that made him smile. he had to write down his own likes and dislikes, not even close enough to who he really was to remember. he doesn't fear death, he has no regrets, he doesn't sleep, he doesn't eat, he's the performer.

what if Plath had become famous for her art and not her poems? what if the bell jar was never written? would her name still be so known? if she'd painted, would she have had the same life? would she have been happier?

did Kafka's mother love him? he was the oldest of his siblings, did they love him, look up to him? did he take care of them? would his lost work be known if his family had supported him? would he have even created his known works? would he have written at all?

I'm doing better without you. i found a good job, i have a new plan for my future, i'm making lists of cat names for when i get my own place. i'm 45 minutes away from you, and i feel like i'm in a different world, a better one. i spent three days sobering myself up after going through the withdrawal of missing you. we were together almost three years, and it took me three days to stop missing you.

I'm doing better without you. i've taken my sister to the dam my father used to buy drugs at, i've made my new space feel like home, i've stopped checking my phone. i realize now that we should've ended a long time ago, or even not gotten together at all, and it kills me that all of my best memories were with you.

june 19th. you did what you said you'd never do, and helped me pack. you told me we'd stay friends, I said i'd never stop loving you. it felt impossible, i'd loved you for over seven years. i was the luckiest man alive, and all I can do is thank you for holding me close for so long. you let me lay on you one last time, you hugged me, you kissed me, you told me you still loved me and always will. you cracked jokes while I diminished my existence in your life to three bags. I've always been diminished to three bags.

you were beautiful, yet cruel. i hadn't found comfort in you in almost a year, and you fell in love with some world, some man, some vague idea of me every other week. the person you'd become was cold, avoidant, and filled with plot holes. it wasn't that I was immature, it was that I wanted you more and couldn't treat love like a professional would. we both made mistakes, we both hurt. i wanted nothing more than for you to be my soulmate.

young, innocent, and fearless. she was here one day, gone the next. a couple of visits, one had fallen in love. she'd climb, scream, and purr, she could claw her way through your heart and you'd mourn when she left, knowing she was never really yours. have you ever seen an angel cry?

at the middle of his life, he's not exactly what he once was. now bigger and lazier, he doesn't remember me. i regret leaving him for so long, and my heart breaks knowing i couldn't take him. he's half of my heart, and all i can do is mourn our memories, knowing he might not even realize it's me, his keeper. have you ever seen an angel fall?

yesterday was just another tuesday. i'd been up since monday evening, playing video games and rewatching the same shows i'd seen over and over since I was 14. in the morning, I sat at your desk, writing. i mowed the lawn, and I thought about giving the elderly neighbour I'd never spoken to my extra boxes of green tea.

yesterday was just tuesday. we sat in a half comfortable silence. you decided to have a can of green beans for dinner, I dyed my hair and made myself eggs and fried potatoes. an old friend called, she didn't want to be alone after fighting with her boyfriend. we sat in front of the courthouse with her in the dark, laughing and crying until she went home to talk to him.

yesterday was tuesday. we walked home, you shutting your eyes and feeling the light rain with every fiber of your being. i sat on the front stoop and put on strangers by ethel cain for you. you stood on the sidewalk, shoes discarded, allowing the cold rain to cover you. i'd never seen someone so beautiful, nor had I seen someone love something so purely, especially something most don't consider to be alive.

there's a world out there where nothing bad happened to us, but we still met. we still grew close and understood each other. we never hurt each other, we were oh so gentle. you didn't lie, and I didn't get paranoid. you sang all day, and I was never angry. you didn't die every winter and I could cook better. in that lifetime, we'd be different, but it would be just us.

there's a world out there where we got together sooner. you weren't shredded to pieces, and I still liked myself. you never lost yourself, and I embraced change. you got that job you'd dreamed of, and I went to college. you never picked up a bottle and I never stole my mom's cigarettes. it would be us, but it really wouldn't be.

it was years ago when we fell back together, and ever since we've been drifting apart. you are everything I've ever wanted, so why do I proclaim to the world that I want for nothing? what happens if we destroy each other? What if I never again hear you sing?

when I was 6, my therapist asked me what I wanted out of life. I told her I wanted to draw, I wanted to sing, I wanted to write stories better than the ones that took me away from there. she told me I had the hands of an artist. I've never let that go. What if I wanted to have the heart of an artist?