This is why I hate you

I hate you for the way you counted heads,
like an executioner lining up the condemned,
making sure there was always—always—one too many
so I would be the one left out in the cold.

For the tickets you swore were all accounted for,
your voice syrupy-sweet, sickly polite—
Oh no, I must have miscounted, I’m so sorry.
But you weren’t sorry.
You were never sorry.
You were the architect of every exclusion,
every orchestrated oversight,
every deliberate accident
where the only casualty was me.

I hate you for the way you built your throne
on the bones of my belonging,
for the way you sculpted a world where I was the outcast
and then sat back and watched me disappear from it.

I hate you for the way you weaponized whispers,
for the way you turned truth into origami,
folded and twisted until the lie was all that remained.
For the way you draped that lie around my shoulders,
let it cling to my skin like a scarlet letter
I didn’t even know I was wearing
until I saw the way my best friend looked at me like I was a stranger.
Like I was filth.
Like I had done something unforgivable.
Like you hadn’t put those words in their mouth,
like you hadn’t stitched that story from your own spite.

And oh—I hate you for that most of all.
For making me the villain in a story I didn’t even know was being written.
For turning my name into a curse.
For making me lose someone who had once been
my whole world.

I hate you because the echoes of your cruelty
are still bouncing off the walls of my life.
Because the friendships you shattered
are still lying in broken glass around my feet.
Because I still bleed when I walk through their memories.
Because your lies lived longer than the truth ever did.

I hate you for how your absence feels like presence,
for how you are nowhere
but the damage is everywhere.
Because to this day,
there are people who still look through me like I’m made of smoke.
Because to this day,
I still hesitate before trusting kindness,
before believing that I belong.
Because to this day,
I still carry your ghost in the empty spaces
where my friends used to be.

I hate you because somewhere, right now,
you probably don’t even think about me.
And here I am,
still dragging the weight of your shadows,
still coughing up the dust of what you buried me under.

I hate you because I know—
I know—
that you sleep just fine at night.
But I don’t.

And that is why I hate you.