I Hate You Poem by John Yaws

"I hate you", are the harshest words
That one can ever say.
They carve a wound into the heart
Which never goes away.
To have your children glare at you..
And tell you of their hate-
Makes one ask, "What did I do-
To bring things to this state"?
Was it because I would not let
Them go out with their friends?
To drink and drive, and play the fool?
But I know how that ends.
Unwanted children, shattered lives
I'd spare them from this fate-
But is that grounds for one of them
To glare at me with hate?
I think of choices I have made
The seeds which I have sown..
And wish that one could turn back time
If only I had known...
I stood beside my brother's coffin
After he was dead...
And recalled a hundred thousand things
I wish I had not said.
If stories need a moral
Then this should have one too..
I'd caution one to have a care-
Of what they say and do-
It's better far to purge from your-
vocabulary: "hate"...
Than to regret your hasty words...
When it's far too late.