The Magician

I don't hate you

For your incredible cruelty

Your pervasive destructiveness

Your bottomless dishonesty.

I don’t hate you

For your tragic trilogy

Of insidious self-deception

Nauseating self-entitlement

Misguided self-centeredness.

I hate

What happened to you

And the meaning you assigned to it

That turned you into that monster.

I don’t hate

That you are a monster.

I understand.

I hate

That you still believe

That the meaning you conjured

All those years ago

- a child’s meaning -

Is still fitting and proper.

I hate

That you still choose

To be that monster

And unleash your cruelty

Your destructiveness

Your dishonesty

On everyone around you

All the while

With the deranged notion

That you are a god

Among pathetic imbeciles

Who owe you

For the wrongdoings of others

Committed long ago.

I hate

That you will never know

That you are the real prisoner

That for all your methods

Of mass destruction

We can always

leave you

But you never can.

©Miriam Segal, 15.02.2024
Photo by Artem Maltsev on Unsplash