maybe i love you

that's why you haunt me. i sat at the corner on la brea, at the bus bench, freezing my fingers off, looking for you.
it didn't matter, i knew you wouldn't come and if you did, you'd have some letter, spouting sonnets of contrition and love so deep and endless that i'd forgive it all for a taste of your insides. but, this thing, whatever it is, in jeans and a torn-t-shirt, holds me captive. like a prisoner in a cage with no food and nothing to read. i try. i will go out tonight and make out with some random actor or some random musician and he will want me and i will say, no. my heart belongs to someone else. can't say why. i think i know, but then in a moment it eludes me. your breath, is the breath of a man. you sweat like you've gone running up a giant mountain and then come back to hold me. you hold me so tightly, i have a hard time breathing. you whisper things that make all the sense in the world. more than all of that. it is your hands. your recklessness and your hatred of yourself that i admire. how could you hate someone so beautiful, noble and full of contradictions? how could you hate someone who might know more than anyone. how can you hate me? or is that fear--a weakness of character, a something to pull on, a push and then nothing. you wanted it to die. i can't let it. more than liking you at all, i respect you. i can't understand why. i've asked myself while at dinner with countless others who bore me to tears. why you? i see your flaw. we all see the arrogance, the parade, the posturing for attention, the false flirting with girls you wouldn't spend time with. but, alone with me, you were real. quiet and nervous. real as anything. like a rabbit with a heartbeat. that is what you are to me. a rabbit. with no home and wild and you will get out in the middle of the night and you will die in the mouth of a coyote and i will not save you, because you will die like a man. not screaming, but seeing your foe as your brother. you will tell the coyote, drink my blood, be my brother or i will crush your skull, although you can't move, you are a rabbit and in his mouth. bravado to the end, but a heart that beats like apollo. that is why. there's more. i want you to be happy and naked and crying. i want to hold you until you shake from the knowing. you are safe here. you always were. i am nothing if not loyal. i would not hurt you. but, i cannot tell you things to make you happy either. you are a rabbit and you will die in the mouth of a coyote, by yourself and you will whisper the one secret you told me in silence. i cannot help you, i will lead you through darkness to see the mirror and i will show you what you are, even if it means you won't like it and you will hate me and that is my gift to you.