I would hurt a fly
Kids are getting ready for bed, I hear their tumult noises and closet doors banging. The older urging the little to choose: The fairy pajamas or the mermaid ones? A chuckle beside me. Coming from too near, heard from too deep inside of me. I look at my hand and it seems to be holding another– not tightly, I’d say, but rather completely. Without having left a strip of air between, it holds as if it’s its place, as if it's its irreplaceable piece of the puzzle. The chuckle is followed with a comment uttered by a voice so shockingly alluring to the ear, “Guess, that’s the question of the day, huh? Hey, did I read to them last night, or did you?”
I don't know if you know but you know–but you’ve got to know– that I would hurt a fly.
The kid with striped pajamas standing before me, I watch as he gives the weight of his fragile body in one stupid foot to the next. He's hopping, he's flossing, he's wiggling– what a careless stupid thing.
I look at the man looking gracefully beside me and I yell inside: I said I don't know if you know but DO know that I WOULD hurt a fly.
This laborious, this stout feeling in me towards this kid and the girl who has literally jumped out of nowhere, following, replicating the boy’s every extremely idiotic move has insinuated in me like venom. Brisk sheer venom scattered from my chest, covered my bleek body, spread across in a flash, now forcing me to understand, to think to myself:
Who taught me how to hate?
If I even knew, damn if I only knew who had taught me how to hate, whether that means going back centuries, I'd certainly conclude right in this second as I look at these two inept, dependent creatures and this big one holding my hand beside me who I disgustingly feel emotional dependence for, I’d conclude that there’s been one more person to have disappointed so fucking enourmously. One me and the other, my teacher of Hatred. Because, damn who would have taught?
That I would not be able to hurt a fly. Not be able to squeeze the wings and hear them crunch like Cinnamon Toast Crunch– Fuck, those are her favorite;
So am I not able to dissect the insect and bathe my hands in its milliliters of drab blue blood– So am I not ?
This sticky feeling to weigh down the vicious hatred that I had raised and nourished for years now; as if there’s no history, as if there’s no root to it, who would have thought? They did a poor job, look at me now, how would I hurt a fly?
