When I’m looking at a beautiful night sky, I don’t really care for the shiny dots. I am fascinated by the darkness in the hollow gradient of their halos.

See, I’m a pretty happy person. Lucky, too! I’ve received unimaginable amounts of love, building me up to become sensitive, empathetic, curious, forgiving, optimistic. I hadn’t really realized before, but this makes me incredibly strong. Way stronger in the face of adversity than people who were unfortunate enough to receive kick after kick in the brain from those who were supposed to love them.

I am actually full of what they crave, I am a juicy prey for that very kind of bruised human being. If you’re like me, you know them well. To us, they are dark holes. Shiny pits of mesmerizing darkness. They are deep. You can feel their pain almost like an itch through your skull. They are intriguing, you want to scratch gently through their rust until the gold shines through. You don’t understand how someone can be bent that way. How does one shatter such great diamonds?

Because that’s what they are, really, they are great. They are clever, they are determined, they are charismatic, they are the very special snowflakes they’ve always desperately and proudly known themselves to be. You think you can mend them, because your soul is bright and flawless, a true mirror of innocence. If only they could catch a glimpse of themselves from the corner of your eyes, oh for sure, they would see.

You’re almost naive.

For this very reason, you will probably fall in love with them. Of course, you will still smell the blood, you will still hear their warning. Somehow, you won’t mind the fear but just enjoy the thrill. You will breathe deeper as they pull you to their chest, feeling the fading vibrations of their screaming “GO AWAY”.

It won’t make any sense.

What happened to them? Don’t you die to understand? Of course, you do, because they are what you could have been. They are burning cars on the side of the road: you know it’s fucked up, but you can’t help but watching.

You still have a brain, I know. You are oh, so aware, you can see, you can tell. You hear right through the fallacies, you could write the sheet music of their kissing away your doubts. You see their chest facing the door, twisting away from their mouth, whispering the very words you die to hear. Methodically, you’re taking your pulse as it’s getting weaker, as they’re wastefully sucking your soul into the nothing. You can count the teeth on the teary flesh you’re chewing to elope from their bear trap embrace.

You’re like a scientist trapped in the body of a rabbit. A stupid little rabbit caught in the light of the car coming to crush its bones.

See, I am a pretty lucky person. Someone found me who could still tell the difference between a rabbit and a stainless steel machine, moments before I forgot it myself. Seconds before I lost all that made me a very happy animal: flesh, blood, bones, heart and soul.

I don’t have any advice for you, fellow rabbits. You can pray for the car to stop. You can hope for a hero to snatch you away from doom. I’d rather wish you a beautiful jolt, a graceful hop out of danger and into the wild again.

Illustration by Yelena Bryksenkova.