the easter bunny 
& other lies that can't hurt us.

while sitting in my 
father's blue jeep
when i was seven
my father & i agreed that
the idea of a giant bunny
breaking into your house
on easter eve was absurd--
we resolved it was nothing
like santa claus.
santa had sound evidence
of transportation &
neither of us could refute 
the crumbs on the plate
of oreos left out for him 
each year--
we ate jelly beans mouth fulls
from an open bag--

i never believed in the easter bunny
but he taught me how there are some
lies that are sacred.
there are some lies 
that were always inevitable-- 
some lies that are necessary for
falling in love & you have to  
really love someone to lie
to them like a fist of
robins eggs.

we have nested here in the
green plastic
grass-- pulled on
our sugar-blazers like
the marshmallow chicks--
my father call me 
his little girl.
i sit patient in a 
woven basket for him--
pretend i still eat candy
with a fork 
pretend i still believe
in easter bunnies-- bending
up right & walking
in our unlocked front door--
my parents wave to him
& tell him where to leave 
the baskets for us--

i decided not to believe
anymore so that maybe
everything i eat would stop
tasting like jelly beans--
i don't want to sit in
easter baskets.
i don't want to keep
waking up in the body 
of a girl--
each time i pull out
my hair in tangles
of plastic grass i am reminded 
of how beautifully deadly
our lies are--

i refute him from the back porch--
not loud or audacious--
i whisper it like
the gossip of the wind chimes--
i say
there was never an easter bunny--
the easter bunny
is nothing but another
name my father gave himself
so that we would love him
in more ways than one--
& so the sky cracks
to sprout tulips 
& the ground rains upwards--
the thunder growling from the
the soil won't let me sleep--

i have to fill plastic eggs with
handfuls of speckled jelly
beans-- blues & greens &
a certain type purple
that reminds me of bruised 
skin-- my body in a trance
i peel off the wallpaper
to harbor the vessels--
rip up the tiles of the
kitchen floor like scabs 
to conceal more eggs--
this house is a skeleton
of everything we left unspoken--

this is how easter bunnies
are born-- refusing themselves
& simultaneous proving our
own existence-- 
i refuted my own existence
on the back porch--
sneak in front doors--
crawl out of plastic eggs--

i can pretend to be your
little girl &
bite the heads off
of the chocolate rabbits
sleeping
alone in the woven basket--