The Rabbit

Location

There are a couple of centimeters of skin

that you can pull off of my arms,

where muscles have atrophied

for two years from underuse.

The skin is soft, but when

you pinch it you can feel a

grid of tissue intersecting and

connecting like a network of

swamp vines.

 

What no one tells you when

you're on crutches is that

you can't let the rubber head

at the top dig into your

armpit too much. Your

skin will get red and swollen.

Your hands will get

tough and sometimes have

little ghostly blisters

that will fade, but never

disappear completely.

 

Every movement that you make

will require your core,

suck it in, suck it up, 

you use your upper body.

It isn't like walking

at all. Your leg is a

point on a mathematical compass.

 

When you try to be

independent from your

crutches you're

forced to learn how to

maneuver yourself around

by using stable objects.

You become a leech

and the only nutrient

you yearn for is movement.

 

When you have to get to

the fields that are behind

your high school for

soccer, you have to leave

right after the last bell.

You wear your practice

clothes, because you've

adapted, little leech, you

know what can fit onto

your metamorphic body.

 

You know the trail that

would be fastest for your

weak fleshy body so you

can get to practice on time.

Coach would never accept

it if the captain was late,

he was already upset that

your transformation out

of the cocoon was into

a leech and not a moth.

You weren't attracted to the

lights. You stayed in the dark

away. 

 

When you passes the fenced

track, carrying the weight of

blood movement that you

sucked out of people for

six hours, eight including

when your mother had to pull

down your pants for you to

pee, you pass a dead rabbit.

 

Its grey fur looked like

your leg, fading in color.

You stopped your extend,

pull, hop pattern to stare at

it.

 

For a calculated eight

weeks you passed by

the rabbit. It never ran,

hopped, pulled its long

legs apart and together.

It bloated. The rabbit

burst, infected with other

parasites that ate away

at its movement. Fiber

by fiber, the skeletal

muscles to tendons

dissipate into the

creatures. You watch

in horror every day

you pass, but you don't

change your route to

get up to the field.

The moths never see

the rabbit.

 

Moths fly into lights

all the time. They bump

off their dust. If human

hands touch the tiny

scales made from hairs

that allow them to fly,

their movement 

is seized and they are

crippled. They kill

themselves in 

order to get light. They

blind themselves, fly

into flames and cars.

Eventually, light

mars and kills them.

 

Your bite does not cause

pain. You rely on people

in order to live. You

need help in order to

survive.

 

And you do survive.

 

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