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Sometimes we look at the world. At the wars, at the destruction, at the cruelty inflicted on people because of race, gender, religion, or just personal agendas, and think, hate is winning.
This world is not what the comic books promised us. A place where the righteous come out victorious, where the true stories win over the falsehoods, where goodness melts the heart of evildoers. It’s easy to become hardened by these undeniable realities.
To begin to see enemies in broken people.
To feel that you too should hate back.
I’ve done it a lot lately, found the words I hate repeated from my lips. And yes, it’s okay to release some rage. To wallow in your own personal injustices and mourn tragic ends for those we consider friends and family.
It’s also human to confuse the unfairness of life with the work of an imagined foe. We’ve all done it. Hate is within us all.
Because looking out will always be easier than examining within. But it’s a corroding feeling, that leaves no room for love. No room for hope. No room for forgiveness. Of others. Of self.
I am not naive enough to imagine a world entirely without hate, but I am hopeful enough to think that people can ask the question. Is the power and control hate gives worth the loss of love?
For a hateful man can never know love. They can be fawned over. They can be understood. They can even be successful and or outwardly fulfilled. But within, the poison has already taken hold and rot has begun.
Hate attacks outward, but devours from within. It creates a hole in the hater’s soul. That nothing can ever fill.
Hard looks within are where slowly the blinders may come off.
My VO
0:00
-2:28
Hate lashes out
but eats away within,
a zero-sum game
where no one wins.
It blinds and deafens
once kind ears,
to taste only venom
to see only fear,
hate feels easy, at first
imagining the other,
as the worst,
quieting shame with blame,
it projects out,
so one doesn’t have to reflect
on their own pain,
their own sadness,
a festering kind of madness
where an imagined foe
is a monster and you the hero.
Our own demons made man,
our own past manifest,
as a human shadow,
haunting our every thought,
blurring all reason,
creating wars of words,
and sacrifices in blood.
Hate eviscerates victims,
and devours villains,
it numbs all beauty,
it silences hope.
Hate is the rope,
that hangs us all,
for there is no
good to be gained,
from another’s fall,
no joy to be had
in hastening demise,
hate is a battle
with no prize.
Its victories are shallow,
its power hollow,
its prison walls shaky,
the guard perpetually breaking,
It’s naive to say,
that hate will not have spoils,
will not get attention or fame,
will not garner followers
in its ugly name.
Hate will, hate always has,
it can be an intoxicating thing
the control that hate creates,
to see others as wrong
and you as infinitely right,
but that certainty
is a sickness.
A corroding blight,
it takes your mind,
it destroys your body,
it darkens your heart,
hate may gather troops
or rally crowds
may spread far
maim hundreds, scar thousands,
and worse in the curse
of its long history.
But hate takes its greatest toll
on the soul of
the man it consumes,
for there is no lonelier end,
than a man who
has made hate his only friend.
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bout Mila
I’m Mila. A mother of two. A Creative Director by a day, a writer of plays, poetry, films and fiction every spare moment I can find. My dream at this not so young age is to make writing and teaching of writing not just my creative life but my working life. Every sub and paid sub helps me get there.
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Help me produce more indie plays, films, fiction and poetry and create a stage and community for other artists.
Help me produce more indie plays, films, fiction and poetry and create a stage and community for other artists.
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