Oh, bunny.

when asked to write about love.

I took a class called Love.

“What class do you have next?”

“What assignment is that for?”

“Where are you headed?”

“Love.”

“For Love,”

“Love.”

How cheesy is that?

I was signed up for a programming class because it’s CMU and they have to make us do evil stuff like that to provide a well balanced education or whatever. I like school! Don’t get me expelled!

But I wasn’t ready for programming. I had a bit of programming in a class I thought was supposed to be about philosophy and ended up being a ton math disguised as philosophy because we were using logic and proofs. This programming professor tried to give us homework before we even went in for the first day of class. I was feeling lazy and sad and I wanted an easy semester. That’s where I found Love. I switched into it last minute and went in the next day.

I was talking to a therapist because they made me go to one.

“Um, ok that’s a lot,” she said. “And the timeline, this was all just the last couple months?”

“Yeah pretty much,” I said. “So then what do I do now?”

“Well, I mean, you ever thought about getting a pet, or something, maybe?”

“I’ve been wanting a dog,”

“Maybe something a little more manageable, like a fish, something little,”

I got a bunny.

My class on Love was less cheesy than I thought it was gonna be. It became one of my favorites. Talking mostly about different representations and thoughts in literature on love. Ocean Vuong, Simone de Beauvior, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jane Austen.

One of our final assignments was to do some creative writing: write about something you love. It was a series of vignettes, each one 100 words or less.

For some context. My bunny’s name is Mabel, short for Maybelline. Her middle name is New York. Her last name is my last name. Hawthorne.

Maybelline New York Hawthorne.

She sits in my lap and stares into my face. She’s very still because she wants me to give her kisses on her forehead. If I’m in bed, she tries to jump up but she’s too small to reach. 

We get scared easy. She’s scared of dogs. I get scared when there's a dog around because it might scare her. 

I learned how she likes me to apologize now, and how she shows she forgives me. I’ll apologize again later if she isn’t ready to forgive me yet.  

Maybe we’ll go for a walk if we’re not too scared today.   

Snow Boots.

My parents tried to buy me a pair of boots once. I told them how I slipped on ice on my way to class. They said how beat up my old shoes were and took me to buy new ones. 

They wanted to get me a pair of boots so I wouldn’t fall down. First pair was $100. Too expensive to entertain. I got upset. My parents assumed I didn’t like the boots. 

They kept suggesting more and more expensive pairs. I burst into tears in the middle of the DSW. 

I couldn’t help it. 

Junebug 

I tucked the blanket in around her toes. I sang to her, I read her stories. I taught her new words.

She says Mikey’s her favorite now. She says it’s because he’s good at board games. 

“What about me, what did I do?” I joked.

“You left,” 

“Sophia left, why aren’t you mad at her?” 

“She came back,” she said on the phone, “You didn’t come back.”