I hate you today. I do. Yesterday it was love and the day before
it was something in between, like passion, like anger, like something derived
from fear, derived from the need to survive, derived without external threat,
without you.
I wore shorts today. I did. Yesterday I was holding on to resentment
for the moon-shaped scar on my thigh. Today it is more like scorn, like
church-centered religiousness or de-institutionalized spirituality. I often
can't tell the difference between the two. I have been diagnosed with a
phobia that renders me incapable of distinguishing between the two.
I am standing on a thin line today. I am. On one side is love, on the
other side is antagonism, which is tolerant of hate but not completely
accepting. I have an intense hostility and aversion to acceptance derived
from wearing shorts, derived from the moon-shaped scar on my thigh made
with a fishing hook you took from your pocket.
I have a strong aversion to fishing hooks and shorts and acceptance.
I hate being away from all three. I hate the idea of leaving you alone
all week with a fishing hook in your pocket and a memory of the moon-shaped
scar on my thigh. But I put my shorts on already. And I already told you
how much I love you. And I was wearing shorts!
I have disgust for you today. I do. I have emotional aversion coupled
with malice. Yesterday it was moral condemnation but then I remembered
what I did the day before in a field house behind right field and I think
what I have for you today is more like hostility or disgust.
I am thinking of being jealous today. I am. It is petty. It is crazy.
It makes me feel crazy and petty and alone but jealousy loves me. It is
persistent, it is sympathetic, and it never complains about my bitterness.
It doesn't call me broken, only bent. It loves me when I am morally disgusted.
It says the moon-shaped scar on my thigh is sexy.
I am standing on a thin line today. I am. I am somewhere between kindness
and sympathy and goodwill. And when I say kindness, I mean venom. And when
I say sympathy, I mean poison. And when I say goodwill, I mean disease.
It is easy to get the three confused. It is easy to be angry at you for
your acceptance of my jealousy. It is easy to sting, by instinct, by accident,
like a jellyfish, like a bell-shaped body floating in the tide, harmless
and only trying to protect itself.
I have a strong aversion to you today. I do. But that didn't stop me
from loving you, my bell-shaped body floating, the touch of my skin irritating,
not dangerous, not filled with disgust or jealousy. Not filled with hate.
Only trying to survive.
I hate doing the dishes, did I tell you? There is passion in my hatred,
a feeling of enmity for the dirty water. Like being in love with you. Like
being ignorant of the hostility and disgust in your voice. Thanks be to
God for destroying those who hate me; like David in the Psalms; like the
retaliation against commonly held moral rules, directed against individuals,
entities, objects, or ideas; directed against you and the thin line I am
standing on today; directed against your kindness and sympathy and goodwill.
I have a love of the inappropriate today. I love sin; I turn to vice.
My love is internalized. My love is represented my the half-moon scar on
my thigh. The focus of my hatred is a part of my heart, my heart is the
sinning self. You are the sinning itself. You are the jellyfish, your bell-shaped
body stinging, looking only irritating but being dangerous, being filled
with disgust and jealousy for my half-moon scar.
I love you today. I do. I love the passion and disgust in your voice
when you tell me goodnight. It is perfect and perfectly horrible, like
the half-moon scar on my thigh, like my bell-shaped body, floating and
waiting for something sweet and innocent to retaliate against, waiting
to destroy the last of your innocence, having difficulty in distinguishing
a motive for my love, having potentially equal crime in my desire to have
and use what may be bad for my soul.
