Letter by Justin Rose

I hate you. And I love you. I long, at moments, to lavish upon you all the riches and pleasure that life can afford. I lust for wealth that I may waste it, striving to satisfy your unrelenting, endless desire. I long for fame to lift you up and earn you idolatrous worship.

And then, as I watch you in your hedonist revelry, watch you snort and squirm in the filth of your pleasure, I long to extinguish you, to put you out of your stupor of self-induced misery. I long, out of mercy, to kill you. You disgust me. You evoke hatred and a scornful pity. I stare at the wreckage you leave behind, battered hearts and injured dignities. Emotional carnage and gore splash a crimson trail in your wake. And you walk on in your merry way, licking the filth of emotional bloodshed from stained hands.

And then you smile, and you lift some broken creature from the ground and dry its tears. You lift a lowly worm and point it to the skies, teach it to grow wings. And I love you. I love your mercy, self-satisfying though it may be. I see tears of genuine love in your eyes as you watch a being once below you soar above your realm of existence and out of sight, buoyed by strength you imparted.

Devil, saint, angel of death and demon of mercy, I know not whether to embrace you or to claw out your cold, dark eyes. I adore you. I loathe you. I worship and curse you. Narcissistic masochist, I call you. And, worst of all, I call you self!

© 2014 Justin Rose

Comments are closed.