Beneath the Rubble of Hate
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Written: May 17, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Michael Fulkerson
Quote: “Do good to the people for the sake of God or for the peace of your own soul that you may always see what is pure and save your Heart from the darkness of hate..." By Rumi
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Beneath the rubble, hate remains — a bitter legacy
Hatred and rage grew akin a second skull around me.
Not born, but built — forged for the mortal coil.
A silent tomb guides me after fists in siren light.
My name — ominous — echoes through cave ruins.
We waltz through the hush of subdued magic,
Willfully searing hearts as we splurge.
Our minds wander, melting into calm anarchy.
Tongues, bound by the glitter of ego’s gems,
Emerald chains shattered by a single explosion.
Whispered sighs mislead
And erode the edge of my peaceful indifference.
Hope fades the moment one bows to another.
Until cruelty, sudden and quiet, reappears.
Kinship tastes akin to money —
sweet, distant, and costly —
as I glimpse an idyllic, plum-skinned angel.
The seraphs spoke — their words cut,
revealing love was chained.
Wounds logged and hidden,
I skirted the bright hues.
I believed them: that I wasn’t Black, just cold.
Until I learned: rage speaks louder than life’s brief candle.
My crown tightened akin a fence, drawing in the dark.
My final farewell — a wall that cuts and confines.
Ebony’s cold made me resemble those I loathed.
Then I turned pallid — pale — and despised myself.
Fire, don’t mourn me — I burned to stay warm.
Drugs never ask where you have been —
only feed the death-urge.
Dopamine greets all —
a final gasp, a poisoned hail.
It lets you forget — no matter who you are.
I sank through alleys toward a katabatic abyss.
Sleeping beneath bulbs — no eyes stared at me coldly.
I dealt with men behind winter-cracked eyes,
with promises woven from rot, lustmord, and iron cloy.
Stealing, lying, and dying in quiet halls —
I called it justice: a steel clot to cut.
Just exile, dressed in brighter lights
and a scarlet necklace choking silence.
I died gently, quietly — a text: “he’s gone. hurry.”
As a flame in an airless room — a metal coffin in the driveway.
No one noticed — only hate lingered,
stitched with saudade and iktsuarpok.
They cheered my absence —
hiraeth buried beneath "beatific.”
I wasn’t saved by grace, but by shouts and pleas.
Not a miracle. Not exhaustion. Just solid rain.
I grew tired of hollow echoes — I began to feel exposed.
Rust-water drips. Snake bile burns —
just enough to numb the ache.
Lie beside the hate that split us — to refute the crime.
Komorbid spills from the faucet — light, stone by stone.
No — you are not bruises, nor wrath, nor fleeting rainbows.
You are not the hate — though it nearly claimed you.
A mellifluous sonata hums through your wounds.
Life’s tumult hurts most when
I speak with weight, not weapons.
I create with broken hands,
like a lion in repose — strength quiet in its posture.
To show that even scorched earth can bloom.
Limbs held fast, refusing to be reshaped.
Copyright © Sotto Poet | Year Posted 2025
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