Every day I hunt for the source of it,
the why beneath the hate. I hunt it
through rallies where they scream at trans children,
through border walls and cages, through the venom
spat at brown skin, Black skin, any skin
that isn't theirs.
What am I hunting? The origin point.
The moment fear curdled into fury,
when difference became threat,
when love between two men or two women
became something to legislate against,
to erase, to hunt down itself.
I search for the wound that makes them wound others.
What happened to turn a heart so small
it can't hold a stranger's suffering?
What makes a person look at a family
fleeing hell and see invasion instead of desperation?
I'm hunting the source like a hunter tracks blood
the trail of what broke inside them first.
Was it their own fear of irrelevance?
Their terror of a changing world
where they're no longer centered?
Is hate just fear that's been weaponized?
Some days I think I'm close. I see it,
the fragility dressed as strength,
the emptiness demanding to be filled
with someone else's diminishment.
But I never catch it. Never comprehend
the answer long enough to understand
how a human heart learns to hunt
other human hearts. So, I keep searching,
exhausted, empty-handed, but unable to stop
this hunt for the thing that makes us
hunt each other.
About the Creator
Tim Carmichael
Tim is an Appalachian poet and cookbook author. He writes about rural life, family, and the places he grew up around. His poetry and essays have appeared in Bloodroot and Coal Dust, his latest book.
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Comments (4)
Wonderfully written! maybe if we could hunt that point down and place it on the wall, it could just become another extinct thing
weaponized fear, I would agree that about half of what is going on around here could probably be attributed to that. A thought-provoking piece, well done. ššš¤
This is so powerful. It really makes you stop and think.
Wonderful poem,Tim. I would still like you to read my poems