Mixing Memory and Desire

B,

It's been years since I started hoping for news of your death.

You are the only person I have ever hated, and I doubt that even spitting on you in your casket would dilute the vitriol I feel when I even try to imagine your face.

Whether or not I ever could have believed in a benevolent god, you alone would have been enough to compel me to doubt it. The notion that even predators and rotten people can inadvertently work some good in the world now seems like the ultimate copout. Even if it is true, I find myself wishing you away, whether or not you have some "purpose" to serve in your miserable remaining years.

For once, I met someone whose inside was truly as ugly and deformed as his outside. You always smelled of mold beneath your clothes.

You stole two years of my life and poisoned my mind. You taught me to mistrust those who claim to love me. You took the best parts of my soul and turned them against me. You did the same to several other women. I hope you die. My heart pounds. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

I have to cure this, for my own sake. It surges sometimes, without warning. "Love your enemies" sounds noble, until you have a real one.


Song to My Assassin
by Leonard Cohen


We were chosen, we were chosen,
Miles and miles apart--
I to love your kingdom,
You to love my heart.

The love is intermittent;
The discipline continues:
I work on your spirit;
You work on my sinews.

I watch myself from where you are;
Please don't be mistaken:
The spider web you see me through
Is the view I've always taken.

Begin the ceremony now
That we have been preparing
I'm tired of this marble floor
That we have both been sharing.