We Decorate Danger

What if animals hated?

I mean really hated

Not like us
with our explanations

Our little lamps
placed around the wound

Our need
to make what hurt us
look almost beautiful

I mean hated
from the body

From the ribs

From the place
that knows danger
before the mind
starts acting educated

What if the deer
hated the wolf?

Not because the wolf is evil

Forget evil

That is such a human word

Maybe she hates him
because he is coming

Because the grass changed

Because the air did
what air does
when something wants you for the wrong reason

Maybe her hatred
is her whole body saying absolutely not

And what if the rabbit
hated the fox?

Not for hunger

We all have hunger

But for the crouch

The softness of it

The way he makes waiting
look beautiful

The way he becomes still
before the damage

Haven’t we known this?

Haven’t we seen something calm
and confused it
for something kind?

Haven’t we let something close
because it did not come running?

Because it did not bare its teeth?

Because it said nothing and somehow
that felt safe?

I know

You have felt it too

That small animal in you
lifting her head

That private no

That little sickness
in the stomach
when something is not right but not wrong enough for the world
to give you permission
to leave

And because you are human, you begin the betrayal

Maybe

I’m overreacting

Maybe he didn’t mean it

Maybe the cage
is not a cage
if the door
was opened gently

But I don’t know anymore

I don’t know
when we became so good
at arguing
with our own blood

The deer does not do that

The deer does not stand there
wondering
if the wolf
is thinking of her

The bird does not apologize
to the hand
for wanting the sky

The rabbit does not write poems
about the fox
and call it closure

Only we do that

Only we stay
and decorate the danger

Only we make curtains
for the cage

Only we light candles
inside the mouth

Only we confuse
being wanted
with being safe

And maybe hatred
is not always poison

Maybe sometimes
hatred is the last clean thing
left in the room

Maybe it is the body
finally refusing
to be polite
about its own ruin

Maybe it is the soul saying

No

No
do not come closer

No
do not make a home
out of my softness

No
do not enter my life
like warmth and leave me calling the burn
my fault

Maybe animals hate
only long enough
to survive

Maybe the deer hates
until she runs

Maybe the rabbit hates
until the field opens

Maybe the bird hates
until the hand is gone and the sky returns
to being sky

And maybe that is the part we never learned

How to let hatred
carry us away instead of keeping us inside

How to leave
without making a shrine
out of what almost ate us

How to stop looking back
to see
if the predator
feels lonely

Maybe the animal knows

Maybe she always knew

Maybe hatred
before we made it human, was not ugly at all

Maybe it was mercy
with a pulse

Maybe it was the body
saving itself

Before the heart
could turn around

And forgive the knife
because the hand
that held it
was trembling