Phantom Rabbit - Trinity Carter
Its ears twitch as It sips Its black tea,
Blind eyes sharp enough to make you bleed,
As It lays down Its righteous decree:
“Enough with this silly game,
Alice you should be ashamed,
Stop making such a damn scene,
Why should I intervene,
It’s not that serious,
You are delirious,
Alice, so dramatic,
Theatric, erratic, neurotic,
Such a fuss over a habit,
Just be a damn rabbit.”
Its commands are our dear common law,
Holy foam drips from Its gaping maw,
The normal sliced by your abnormal,
It’s the senses, the ‘you’re not’ and formal,
The input, the verbal, the subtle,
The whole cycle, parent to fetal,
Reality is Its to decide,
You just tuck your arms in for the ride,
And promise It what will cost your life.
***
***
***
You pause before your task,
Ponder It’s spoken words,
Is this the truth, you ask,
Was the choice ever yours?
A flash, there it goes,
Rabbit, sure as snow,
Chase it, you must know,
If you can catch it,
That phantom rabbit.
You dive after that rabbit,
Follow it down, down the hatch
Down you go without a hitch
Chasing down a ghostly goal
But goddammit, you must know
Yes, you must catch that rabbit,
That quick rabbit, sure as snow.
It's gone, body unbound to yours,
Lost in a hall of nameless doors,
So many places it could go,
You sit down, buried in your woe.
Where did that rabbit go?
That rabbit, sure as snow,
Vanished, no whisper, hint, or trace.
Couldn’t mesh with what you won't face,
***
***
You plunge into your mind
Where fear is best defined
As where your teeth snap off
Choking on shards you cough
Swallowing blood and snot
Your self explodes with rot.
You feel too big your skin too small,
You swear you’ll fill this endless hall,
You swear you hear your sternum crack,
Your wrong will burst forth to attack,
You must, you must, you must stop it.
You must catch that fucking white rabbit.
Up ahead there is a small table,
With a plate and a note just for show,
Eat and drink, a fix-it from fable
It is wrong, but what do you know?
If you take the cake, sip that chalice,
Maybe, maybe, maybe your madness
Will slow enough to catch that rabbit.
you just need to catch that damn rabbit
need to eat the cake drink from the chalice
if only just to pause all the madness.
to do as It said,
shift change mold,
fix bend fold,
your wrong self in Its sight
become what is right.
Drink, cake, drink, cake, drink, cake,
Your belly hurts, your jaw starts to ache,
You’re not sure how much more to take,
But in this order you must go,
Why you may never know,
Repeat this keep the flow,
If you don’t you will die,
You see your tombstone: here you lie
In a casket bathed red as merlot
Your mouth torn and split
Nothing left but gurgles and spit
An ugly picture you admit
But you must or you’ll never catch it;
That damn phantom rabbit.
***
eat drink
drink eat
eat drink
drink eat
eat drink
drink eat...
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Trinity is a sophomore who enjoys all sorts of writing but poetry is her favorite. There's this music to it; this freedom of images and sounds and words that you can't get from other sorts of writing. A poem can be a thousand stories in one, and though she loves stories as much as the next person, she finds there's often a rigidity there. Even the most complex novels cannot quite reach the same levels poetry can, because in order to be widely loved, they need to make at least a bit of sense. Poetry does not, and it will forever hold the number one place in her heart for that.