Your hate’s
come awake: such
an unreal charmer, such
a hot squirmer writhing
in a breast pocket
you forgot about;
a pocket you now fear
is thinned enough 
to be soon torn open.
If the hole happens,
you just know hate will 
stick in you, hanging
off your chest by its fangs,
sucking you out of your shell,
envenoming you, making you
up again in its image 
as a venal god blooding up
ahead of a long sporting night.

Your hate’s
come awake: a once-small,
once-secret character
in someone else’s fiction
of what’s normal,
squeaking damaged calls
to whatever passes
for your remaining 
morality.  It calls to
the hand, calls it 
to weaponize.  It calls to
the eyes to see through
red mist.  It calls to
the upper gut and the lower
gut and finally to
the genital center of 
your worst. Your hate’s
pretending
to be your lover tonight:
a seduction, a coarse driven
caress of sweat and fear.

Your hate’s come awake
like a rattlesnake wintering
under a hearthstone, roused
by unanticipated fire.
It happens, it does
happen, it will 
happen.

Meanwhile, love,
secure in another pocket,
has been awake this whole time — 
it tires, though not easily
or deeply enough to ever be
absent completely.
All you need do
is look its way
and it will come to you

to unfasten hate from its bite,
massage poison
from your limbs,
mend that torn pocket
and tuck hate back
where it belongs

before settling back in,
purring its peace,
closer to you 
than ever before.