Sophisticated hate

If you hate the ones who hate,

what does that make you?

Hatred, dressed in virtue,

still poisons the blood it runs through.

Does righteousness make it right?

What’s worse—

the fire, or the fool who feeds it?

When hatred pushes,

does peace emerge,

or do the flames just grow?

How unwise to bring fire to a firefight,

to strike a match and call it light.

Hatred shuts down bridges,

And detours from common ground,

Driving us away from any destination of humanity. 

It paves a road that circles back

to the very thing it swore to end.

As callousness

is merely a stone’s throw from cruelty—

will we become what we condemn?

But to hold resentment is not weakness,

not wrong, nor wicked—

only human.

Perhaps just sick, 

for he who harbors hate

poisons himself,

thinking all the while that getting high is justified.

To hate the haters feels more noble,

but a blade wrapped in silk

cuts the same.

No matter how you dress it up,

sophisticated hate is still hate,

and hate will never heal the world.

Alas, who am I to teach you that?

Forcing understanding is violence too,

isn’t it?