Poetry Project
Asia Williams
Hate Poem
Hate Poem
Julie Sheehan
I hate you truly. Truly I do. (A)
Everything about me hates everything about you. (B)
The flick of my wrist hates you. (C)
The way I hold my pencil hates you. (D)
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped (E)
in the jaws of a moray eel hates you. (F)
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you. (G)
Look out! Fore! I hate you. (H)
The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging (I)
from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you. (J)
The history of this keychain hates you. (K)
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases (L)
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 for a 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
to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might 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.
Rhyme Scheme: Free Verse
Tone: I believe the tone of the poem is stern and unrelenting, when the poet said "I hate you, I truly do" that let me know that she wasn't joking or playing around.
Theme: Having mixed emotions about someone, constantly telling yourself you hate them only because you really do still love that person. I know this because at the end of the poem I feel as if she had finally cracked and realized she still loved this person.
on Monsieur's Departure
On Monsieur’s Departure
I grieve and dare not show my discontent, (A)
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate, (B)
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant, (C)
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate. (B)
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned, (D)
Since from myself another self I turned. (D)
My care is like my shadow in the sun, (E)
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,(F)
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.(E)
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.(H)
No means I find to rid him from my breast, (I)
Till by the end of things it be supprest.(I)
Some gentler passion slide into my mind, (J)
For I am soft and made of melting snow;(K)
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.(J)
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.(K)
Or let me live with some more sweet content,(L)
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.(L)
Tone: The tone of this poem is remorse and heartache. 'Let me live with some more sweet content or die and so forget what love ere meant', this lets me know that my statement is valid.
Theme: The theme of this is losing someone you love can really damage you deeply though you may have to pretend like everything is alright. 'I grieve and dare not to show my discontent, I love and yet I am forced to feel hate', this quote tells me that she is hurt that her love has left.