I., Brighton, UK
I’m a recovering people-pleaser, and have just been asked to make a choice, for my long-term benefit (and thus actually, the benefit of others), that will not please a lot of people in the short term. Can you send me a poem to hold onto the bigger picture – my mind is a battleground!
I.
BK:
Dear I., here is a poem for you:
Ode to People Who Hate Me
I hate being hated even though I
provoke it, not by committing major wrongs
like murder, more like a regular
pattern of being selfish or forgetful,
which is another word for selfish.
If you hate me, trust me I know—
in fact, I have a ledger of people, like you,
who hate me, and I rifle through it every
morning obsessing over the names more
than they think about mine—a passing
thought, a microsecond of dislike or worse,
indifference like the Godzilla rays of fire
I feel buzz out of your eyes when
you scroll past my pictures on Instagram.
I should focus on the people who love me,
every therapist I ever had has told me so,
but I don’t need them to love me more,
so that’s pointless. If we hate each other,
I assure you my hate has a trace of love
with a dash of hope. It’s the throbbing
contradiction of hate’s dark thrall.
It is a poem by Carmen Giménez, which I found in Eunsong Kim’s curation for Poem-a-Day (September 2023).
But, you’re actually asking for a poem that connects to the primordial lattice that excretes weak violet light, aka the bigger picture. I will have to write one myself. Here you are:
Abandon your duties.
Take to your bed.
Drink tea made of bark and oranges.
No, that’s not a poem. It’s simply a protocol of relaxation.
Imagine visiting a Poetry Pharmacy. Open the door and there are no vials, no queue, no blue plastic chairs, no nail clippers. There’s just a bed. It’s your bed. Take to your bed.
