Ambivalence

 June 24, 2023

“Why don’t you hate him?”

I can’t 

I simply… can’t 

I can be angry with him

But when the rage fades

I still miss him

I still care for him

And I still love him

I can even hate myself

For being as pathetic as I am

But not him

None of this is his fault 

So why would I subject him

To my hatred?

He has done nothing wrong

This is all my fault, not his

So no, I don’t hate him

“You can’t hate someone 

When all you feel is love”

I smile softly as I say it

I smile through the pain

I wrote this poem after watching Ae Dil He Mushkil with a friend who, in our post-movie discussion, asked me this exact question. And the way I answered was so poetically beautiful he commented on just how deeply I love this man I've been writing about for 9 years. So when I got home, I wanted to write it down as poetry before I forgot how exactly I expressed my feelings.