Like all little girls, I was born with bunny ears.

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Mine are earth brown. My mother would brush them as each sunrise stretched, tying them together with a bow.

I had lots of friends at school. Some of them were boys with gray, white, black ears like wolves. My heart ached for them. I knew their ears couldn’t fit in a bow.

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We ran together and I cherished the breeze through my bunny ear fur, the soft flap-flap of them trailing behind me, flittering like bird wings. We picked squirming toads from the stream. We watched stars pounce over the sky at dusk. We wondered what might live behind the trees on the other side of the field. They listened when I spoke, ears turned towards me. 

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Ten years later and now they’re not bunny ears, they’re rabbit ears, and I can’t tie them together in a bow, because that would be silly. My face heats with shame when I’m startled and they jump to attention. The wolf boys with their wolf ears snicker at me. We don’t run together anymore, and when I talk their eyes drift away. I slick my ears down the way my mother taught me. I do this every morning, religiously, a prayer. 

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I hate my stupid earth brown ears. I hate the way they tickle my neck. The weight of them on my shoulders fills me with nausea. There’s a scream snared in my chest that bloats my body like a fish left in the sun.

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When my mother gave birth to me, my father saw my wide wet ears, lined with delicate green veins like rivers, and cursed his bad luck. My mother, bloody and broken, began to cry. My father told her to stop being such a rabbit.