Hate

I'm a sinner, and my sin's hate. I deal, hatch, and sometimes receive, dents. Anger sure has a sharp edge, but disappointment is trenchant. Hate knows no confines, nor is limited by age.

I certainly hate my next-door neighbour, and he deserves to be despised: he is an over-sized sloth. My next of kin I also loathe, for other reasons – just as throngs of people do, but they curb their feelings. I hate all day long, and through every season. I hate men according to my humour, but there's no one I hate so much as her.

I'm a good hater. Denting souls has always been my sport. I started hating from an early age, yet I thought for a long time that I loved. I was wrong: love does not exist. It is a variation of hate, a lesser degree of detestation or, ultimately, its absence. Breathing hate makes life more purposeful, and keeps its balance.

To hate anything or anyone does not pave your path to hell, it only precipitates the inevitable. Soon or late, severance and disenchantment come in the way. Such is life. The end of our affair would have come down upon us, later than sooner, had I hated her less than I did.

Hate is all about jettisoning, all about torching all to the ground. It's all about digging ten thousand graves and looking at your calloused, injured hands, and grabbing hold of the shovel, wincing and carrying on. Hate must have no end.

Hate puts colour to my life, puts shades under people. Hate begets more hate. Love doesn't beget more love, it begets jealousy. And jealousy is so just one step away from hate. Yet jealousy didn't happen to me, nor to her. No, it was pure, blind hatred that grabbed a hold of me by the guts.

Some people hate themselves because they can't hate anyone else. I understood why she did what she did and the way she did it – I understood – hence I could no longer hate her. I daresay she hated me more than I did her, then; I outloved her in the end – she won the hate game. To love yourself when you can't love anyone or when no one does, that proves too difficult a task. Only those who have god can do that. Love is a burden. Hate lifts everything up if you hate with your whole heart, unless you add the smallest drop of love – and it drags the whole thing down to the ground like lead. This is why I confine myself to hating myself only, lest the little good will there is out there contaminates me. One is never too sure what hopes can do to oneself.

Hate filters the sentiments while love let them overflow. Hate makes you methodical and meticulous while love allows the passions to roam unchecked, stifling the self at will. It's better to hate for a good reason than to love by principle or by default.

Yet it always has to do with fatigue. Whether we feel our bones break because we hate until it hurts, or whether we get tired of hating – it's a long, enduring, arduous business, hating is – we hate a little less, and we are vulnerable. We let something akin to love, or empathy, seep deep into ourselves. This is intolerable, it's enough to make anyone mad or a recluse. I chose.

Hate is now all I have left.