Hate

By Afshan Jilani

I hate Hate. If I could, I would erase it, delete it from my mind

Demolish it and bury it, crush it and drop it in the ocean

Hate is the death of love and compassion; its evil fangs gnaw

At the corners of disturbed minds as if to slowly dissolve all sensibility

It won’t rest; it won’t take responsibility, just hovers like a miserable shadow

Over my head, and into the dark hearts of men without faith.

 

Hate is the culprit. Hatred, the bitch of creativity, creeping in

Drowning whatever is real, whatever is beloved, and whatever is human.

It roars, it is vicious, it is fathered by ignorance to create more hate.

Hate has many lives, it grows, it flourishes. It manipulates, it overtakes.

Hate is an imposter, a monster with no recompense

Bent on taking all it can and leaving everything destroyed in its path

 

Would they have survived if he did not hate and could control its ferocity?

Would we still bury our heads in the sand and wish hate away?

Why does the haters’ heart still beat? Why does he still breathe and move

And walk and eat? Why can he still continue to hate, while they sleep?

It must be the poison; the bitter taste of hate that jolts him awake

From each reverie of peace, from each moment of solace.

 

Breath taken away, life smothered, they had barely begun to bloom

Did hate’s envy consume hate itself? Or did the hater choose to hate?

Despite the anguish, despite the fervor of revenge, despite all the bias

Love will survive, forgiveness will succeed and compassion for all prevail.

On a day when hatred shrugs, when it snuffs out three beautiful lives

Love rises again in our hearts and the scent of fresh blooms emanates

From the brown dirt, and from their graves rises a labor of love, of peace.

(Written on the murders of three American Muslim students in 2015).

 

Afshan Jilani lives in Houston, Texas.