Hate Me...

If you're sleeping, are you dreaming?
If your dreaming are you dreaming of me?
I can't believe you actually picked me.

I have to block out thoughts of you so I don’t lose my head
They crawl in like a cockroach leaving babies in my bed
Dropping little reels of tape to remind me that I’m alone
Playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home
There's a burning in my pride; a nervous bleeding in my brain
An ounce of peace is all I want for you. Will you never call again?
And will you never say that you love me just to put it in my face?
And will you never try to reach me?
It is I that wanted space

Hate me today
Hate me tomorrow
Hate me for all the things I didn't do for you

Hate me in ways hard to swallow
Hate me so you can finally see what’s good for you

I’m sober now for three whole months it’s one accomplishment that you helped me with
The one thing that always tore us apart is the one thing I won’t touch again
In a sick way I want to thank you for holding my head up late at night
While I was busy waging wars on myself, you were trying to stop the fight
You never doubted my warped opinions on things like suicide and hate
You made me compliment myself when it was way too hard to take
So I’ll drive so fucking far away that I never cross your mind
And do whatever it takes in your heart to leave me behind

Hate me today
Hate me tomorrow
Hate me for all the things I didn’t do for you

Hate me in ways hard to swallow
Hate me so you can finally see what’s good for you

And with a sad heart I say bye to you and wave
Kicking shadows on the street for every mistake that I had made
And like a baby boy I never was a man
Until I saw your blue eyes cry and I held your face in my hand
And then I fell down yelling “Make it go away!”
Just make a smile come back and shine just like it used to be
And then she whispered:

“How can you do this to me?”

Hate me today
Hate me tomorrow
Hate me for all the things I didn’t do for you

Hate me in ways hard to swallow
Hate me so you can finally see what’s good for you

If you're sleeping, are you dreaming?
If you're dreaming are you dreaming of me.
I can't believe you actually picked me.

Please Pass the Acid (or: An Unbalanced Balancing Act?)

More than a decade has passed since those days on the river, with the smell of desperate chance, chickory and ganga in the air. (Jackson Square at its finest.) Though we were fearful and homeless, in those days we still had hope.  The world was smeared out before us for our bleary bidding.  Our cares were minimal.  Our needs, basic at best.  Our greatest concerns were who was holding what that night and what wig to wear with those shoes.  We were tactless and tacky and we wore our own inane - if not insane - brand of five-and-dime fabulosity on our sleeves with pride.

We were The Young Ones.  We were the Lost Boys (and gurrls) of the Big Easy:  Livin' it hard, burnin' it up, and tearin' it down.  What ever it was.  Our stage was The Streets.  Our cast, a cacophony of Gutter Punks and Drag Queens; High Rollers and Hookers; Poets, Potheads, Vampires, and Waitresses; Runaways and Royalty.  We were addicted to the gutted and glittered glamour that was the tourist's Bourbon Street.  We were addicted to the rough trade in the back rooms of Rampart.  We were addicted to everything in between, never realizing it was all one and the same.

Looking back now, as what passes for an adult, I often wonder how we survived.  We were kidnapped.  We were drugged (irony, I know).  We were held at gunpoint and raped over the hood of a beat up Chevy, only to learn the gun wasn't loaded.  We were arrested; we were released.  We stole.  We drank.  We partied.  And eventually, we all turned on one another...

I guess it's all part of the process.  It became the journey that brought us all to the crossroads at which we now stand - good, bad, or indifferent; for better or worse.  The destruction was the creation (or was it the other way round?) that destroyed us all, and created the monsters we have become.  We are our own end result in whatever medium we now choose to exist...  Looking out at yet another smeared world and its own hot mess of possibility.  Of promise, perhaps, even?

Are we really any more the wise now than we were then?  Did all the bloodshed and tears and accompanying battle scars really leave us any wisdom in its wake?  Or are we just stuck in an obligatory purgatory of all that is expected.  In running from that life, did we run headlong into this one - in a losing game of tit for tat???

I really don't know anymore.

The most disconcerting aspect of it all, though, is that I don't know which is worse:  this life, or that one.  In this new world, I feel caged.  My spirit feels bound and gagged; tethered to a life I don't understand and can not seem to make a go of being a part of.  Inversely, who in their right mind would long for a world of park bench amenities and laundry mat Christmases just so their soul felt free?

Surely there has to be a balance in it all somewhere...  Or is She Who Holds the Scales just as tipsy, fucked up, drunk, and crazy as we all once were.

Someone please pass the acid...  And go ask Alice.

I think she'll know...

Of Tigers and Dwarves

I knew in that moment that I was done for.  I felt it in that single, solitary instant like some cosmic blast from an unseen flamethrower...

"Who is he?" I asked.

"The big one?  Or the little one?"  She countered.

"The tall one that looks like Dopey..."  I replied.  "I want to meet him."

Her eyes lit up with all the trouble-making tenacity that made her her.  "Are you gonna bring him home?"

I chuckled.  Bring him home, I did.  And for years following, there was seldom a night that he wasn't by my side.

We lived fast.  We loved hard.  We fucked harder, and partied the hardest of all.  We dug our nails into each others flesh and held on for dear life as the angry tides that were the world around us tried like Hell to beat us down and tear us apart.  We were having none of it.  We were two warriors without the weapons needed, fighting a battle I think we both knew, in our hearts, that we were destined to ultimately lose.  We were our own private Waterloo.

I can recall telling myself one night towards what would become The End:

"Remember this.  It's fading."

And it already was.  We were like a still-developing photograph exposed to harsh light.  Our shadows were dissipating and washing out what was left.  Gone - or going - all too soon for us to even cherish were our wanton ways and wild whims.  I knew this.  I saw it coming.  I think he did too, but he refused it with all the bravado and fuck-you of the teenager that he still was.

Not surprisingly, it all came crashing down.  A falling house of cards...  Dominoes tumbling...  Bubbles bursting...  My realities and his recreations could no longer coexist within the same hearts.  The hands that once held each other so close against the world now throttled the voices that once whispered forevers, hurled daggers so vicious that perhaps not even time could heal.  The carousel had spun wildly out of control and thrown us both on our asses in vastly different directions.

The only thing left to do was walk away while there was still some semblance of something to walk away from.  It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make.  But the fight for it was destroying it faster that anything else that could be done.

Bags were packed in virtual silence.  A fairytale divided into cardboard boxes.  Princes became Ogres.  Apples became Poison.  And suddenly, it was over.  He was standing on the front porch, his ride waiting...  And the last thing he ever said to me:

"I always loved you, Mama."

And my heart shattered into dust.  I didn't say a word.  I didn't dare.

He turned away.

I shut the door.

I've never wept so completely.  Never known the meaning of mourning as I did in that moment.

Never before.

Never since.

Never again.

From Howling to Dancing...

Got in a bit of hot water over the name of my blog,
When Rabbit Howls...

Copyright infringement or some such poo of the horse.

So I decided to dance...

Points for you if you know where this title,
Redhead Dancing,  comes from...

Quote of the Day

"When I was a boy I fell out of a tree but I managed just to grab a branch. I hung there for a long time, terrified. The silence and the pain in my arms. And the pounding in my ears.

And then I fell.

I don't remember what happened when I hit the ground.

All I can remember now is the agony of holding on..

And the wonderful feeling...

The wonderful feeling of letting go."

- from the movie, The Wisdom of Crocodiles

Maya Angelou's recitation of "Still, I Rise"

The glorious poet herself reciting the piece I posted yesterday. Fabulous. Fabulous. Fabulous.

"I rise. I rise. I rise."

("There I go rising...")

A Rabbity Defense

This blog is my vent.  I am not psychotic and all Sylvia Plath with my head in the oven (it's electric, anyway) or toilet and suicidal.  I am just ranting.  I am getting it out, and working through it.  It's not unlike taking pen to paper in a journal - which I do also.  I just prefer this medium because of all the feedback I receive.  It often helps to hear your comments and thoughts and [it] gives me a new perspective I might not have considered otherwise.

Some people drink.  Some people dance.  Some people punch things.   Some people scream at the make-believe.  I blog.  I howl...

All is (relatively) well in Rabbitland.  I am just howling.  Wading through the bullshit...  "Makin' in work," as Tim would say.

But I thank you all for all your concern and feedback and input and shut-fuck-ups.  It really does help more than you know.

Rising on the Winds of Self

I've been reciting this all day today. It's very empowering; magical. Thought I would share...

Enjoy.

[Image: Rise of Dream by "Moroka323"]

Still, I Rise

by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Flying into the light of the dark, black night.

"It's only after you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything."

- Chuck Palaniuk, Fight Club

I just feel broken.

This whole disastrous moving process has really put an incredible spin on the ways of my world.  In so, so many ways, I have never felt more alone.  Inversely, I have never been more aware of who I am, what I can do, and the harsh truths that are my life.  It's a good thing.  I think alone is far better that a festering cess pool of bullshit.  This ordeal has broken my heart, my faith - even my misguided belief system - and believe you me, it needed breaking.

It's made me sit back and realize so many things in the course of the last two weeks.  All the advice and seemingly well-intended suggestions, offers of help and support, so on and so forth, I know now are nothing but empty promise, self-gratifying goodities so YOU feel better about yourself, and so much as whispers on the wind...  In essence, it's all a crock of shit.

"You should do this, Rabbit."  "I'll help, Rabbit."  "If you ever need anything, Rabbit..."

Yeah, well...  When it came down to it, who is actually here?  No God Damned Body.  Yet again, I am on my own.  It's all on me.  I don't know why this struck me so alarmingly this time around.  Maybe because for once I had allowed myself to believe people.  To believe IN people.  I don't know why, really.  As a kid, I was shipped around to whomever hated me less at the time, dropped off at random hotel rooms, left to fend for myself when I made a mistake.  It's the way of things.  It always has been, and - blaringly obviously - it always will be.

And I hate to feel this way, but I am done.  If it is to be only me, the damn it to hell, it's going to be all ABOUT me.  I'm over it.  I. Am. Done.  Remember this folks, when you want your carpet laid, or your car worked on, or your obnoxious snot-oozing child babysat...  When you want a free haircut or website or makeover for your whore of a sister's 19th wedding...

Hell.  Fucking.  No.

I am saying it now.  Take note.  Tweet it.  Post it.  Broadcast it.  Scream it from the fucking rooftops.  Roll it up and stick it in your squishy places.  I really don't care.  You'll all taken all you're gonna get.  It's over.

And from the ashes of all this bullshit, I will rise.

So thank you, and good-night.

I'll fly above.

It's beneath me.

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night...

Take these broken wings & learn to fly...

All your life, you were only waiting

for this moment to arise.

Blackbird, fly.

Into the light of the dark, black night."

- John Lennon, Paul McCartney

And the award for Scariest Halloween Costume of 2009 goes to...

*drumroll please*

Lindsay Lohan!!!

Damn...  The resemblance is uncanny!  Good job!!!