Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Hate Poem

And I told you yesterday was bad! I spent most of today sitting on the phone with tech support for ages trying to clean my virus-laden computer. I am so, so glad I have a Mac at home. Anyway, in honor of crappy days everywhere, I give you the following poem, which doesn't have much to do with crappy days but still seems appropriate.

HATE POEM
by Julie Sheehan

I hate you. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped in the jaws of a moray
..............eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.

Look out! Fore! I hate you.

The little blue-green speck of sock lint I'm trying to dig from under my third
..............toenail, left foot, hates you.

The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you pick out the cashews hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.

A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious symbol of how I
..............hate you.

My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me to drive: hate.
My pleasant "good morning": hate.
You know how when I'm sleepy I nuzzle my head under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target eyes articulate hate. My wit practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning till night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our last row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I may hate each one individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity of my hate, which
..............can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.


from Pleiades

2 comments:

Heather B. said...

This poem is awesome. Next time I hate the Sabres, I'm just going to post this instead.

Meg said...

It really is a very satisfying poem, isn't it? :)