Silly Rabbit

Be more Behrtram, they said to him,

be yourself, be true to yourself,

but behrtram did not like what they liked,

he did not want the things they sought with their wholeness,

he hated their stiff orangeness, he hated their bitterness, he had heard stories about where they came from, how they got here,

he believed their strangeness, he feared their otherness, he despised his otherness,

he knew he was alone in the clan, these he called family, friend, neighbour, who all were the same, looked the same, spoke the same, behaved the same, he wondered if they were the same inside, the same as his inside,

in his heart he knew what he really wanted was the soft touch of the forbidden, he imagined the comfort of being enclosed, bound, he wanted to be bound by his desires,

so he changed,

silly rabbit,

his change was simple to begin with, like that eponymous bunny he hopped instead of bouncing, and bounced instead of bounding, 

he spoke his thoughts,

he first told a friend, a friend he trusted and the friend warned him to shut the fuck up,

but he didn’t listen, he talked, more, more, until everyone knew,

they whispered in the corners, they argued in the corridors, they shouted in the streets, the angry crowd chased him, caught him and in a frenzy they stoned Behrtram,

dead,

dead,

silly rabbit.