Hiding Hate

I have never liked the idea of not liking someone just because he caused me pain or betrayed me. Not that pain and betrayal are not reasonable enough to hate someone but because hate is such a powerful word. To hate someone, the feeling he made me feel would be most likely hatred too. He should hate me first before I hate him. Like I’ll give him what he gave me.

You probably are laughing at me right now, reading how senseless these texts are. But does it ever crossed in your mind how easy and hard it might be to hide hate? Or just to have it?

When I was fourteen, my brother, Paul, throw his fist in my face resulting in purple make-up surrounding my left eye. He was twelve at that moment, pretty much impulsive and abusive for a child. I should have fought back. But do you know what I did to him? Nothing. There was hate of course. He surely saw it in my eyes. Those are daggers. My knuckles are so athirst to touch his bony jaw but they kind of hesitated. So I cried. Turn my back, called my mom, treat my swollen eyes and yelled ‘I hate you!’ with all my lungs out. And yes, hate is still hidden. He knows I don’t like what he did, probably think I loathe him but he doesn’t know what I felt. Then, that is how easy to hate someone. The hard part comes next when you can’t hurt them back and have them pay for your destruction.
Much harder when they deny your accusation of them hating you which according to you lead to them ruining you.

We can never hate someone we love, they said. But I refuse to recognize that as the universal truth. Hate grows when the one we love hates us without us even knowing. Every time we feel unwanted, unlovable and taken for granted, hatred replaces the love we once felt and hold for so many lifetimes we believed we had.

Sometimes we mistaken hatred for love. Hate has the same intensity as love but both are completely different. There’s no such thing as ‘the more you hate, the more you love’. Like scrutinizing them, pointing out their bad attitude and behaviour mean caring. Honestly, we can never love someone we hate. For maybe it wasn’t hatred at all. Indifferent, perhaps.

-Jucel Faith

Photo: Vince Louie Coroza Resurreccion