Love and Hate

Love is a many splendid thing:

Candy and cherries and an ice cream cone;

But just as one can't live off sweets,

One can't live off love alone.

Hatred is the opposite –

Anger and jealousy and more –

And can fuel the lives of many

Just living to settle a score.

I've heard that love is painful,

Fragile, lustful, and unwise.

Hate, I've heard, comes like a breeze,

Lazy or violent, through the skies.

The funny thing between the two

Is just how it can be

That love is hard to live without

And of hatred we should be free.

We've read the tales of sacrifice,

And lovers scorned with hate,

And loving mingled in the lives

Of those resigned to fate.

No one really understands

What love and hate can mean

To those who have but nothing else

To them from their lives screen.

Call it delusion, call it insane –

The expressions of the two –

But hate and love are in our lives,

And they will see us through.