I hate them.
They are inferior, a lower design,
And so I convince myself my hatred is justified,
A holy crusade to protect what is mine.

This hatred inside me is vast, a suffocating sea,
But I cannot place it upon my family.
I cherish them too deeply, their flaws and their grace;
My blood runs through their veins, my history in their face,
And I love them fiercely, with a desperate, defensive pride.
Yet the hatred still remains, a feral thing inside.
It demands a destination, a map, a name;
It insists on a victim to shoulder the blame.

So I look toward those over there, across the divide,
The ones history and literature have already prepared,
Laid out on the altar where the conscience is spared.
I am taught they are lesser, a narrative old and grim,
And in that cruel lesson, I find permission at the rim.
Permission to unload the poison, the venom, the grief,
The internal rot that I cannot bear to keep.

How convenient it is that they have been declared small.
How comforting it is to believe they were made to fall,
Crafted by destiny to carry what I refuse to confront.
This hatred has been corroding every cell in my chest,
A slow-burning acid that denies me my rest.
So I cleanse myself, a twisted baptism of blame,
By placing it onto you, by calling your name.

You can endure it, I tell myself, as I turn the screw,
Because surely hatred is nothing new to people like you.
And as I empty myself of it, casting the load,
I feel lighter. Relieved. As if a sickness subsided.
Almost healed on this dark, solitary road.

But what kind of healing requires another human soul
To become the container for the sickness making you whole?
What kind of innocence survives by the blade,
Manufacturing a basement where the inferior are made?

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is the simplest truth of the breach:
The hated often did nothing, committed no crime,
Except exist in the light, within arm’s length of reach,
Of a person unwilling to face their own shadow in time.