With some predators, to bend down, honoring their egotistical hierarchy is enough. With others, you’ll just be an easier meal.

Ignore some predators, they eventually go away. Others become angry and finally devour you.

Some may nibble on you as though their attention and thievery were in your best interests, or a form of love, until nothing remains of you.

Climb a tree, and they may bark at you until they tire, and you are in shock.

Standing truthful befuddles some, they are intrigued but also disdainful, and will do their best to convert you. Give up a part of yourself, and they return convinced you owe them the whole of you. Feed them, and they punish you for the inadequacy of the food you provide, even as they insist on more.

I didn’t believe in predators once upon a time, perhaps I still don’t. I see the unsullied infant, the light in everybody, that somehow got damaged or broken. But while that may be true, self-defense is a healthy adjunct to being empathic. But what kind of self-defense? If you refuse to be prey, does a predator change? Is their an intimacy between the roles?

I don’t have answers, to be frank. I am studying predators.