Why Do You Hate Me? Poem by Maggie Paige

Why do you hate me?

I’m just a child I never did anything to you.

Is it because of my skin?

Because it is white/black/both?

Or because I am

Muslim/Christian/Pagan/Atheist/Buddhist/Sikh/Islamic/Jewish or another?

Because I live in a different place from you?

Because my ancestors did yours wrong/good/Indifference?

Because I think differently from you?

Because of who my family is?

Because I am a boy/girl/both?

Because I am gay/straight/both?

Because I believe I am equal to you?

Because I don’t accept me as you think of me?

Because I don’t fit your stereotype?

Because I am liberal/conservative/republican/democrat?

Because I love/hate our planet?

Because my government did something to yours?

None of that matters.

None of it.

What matters is who I am and who you are as people defined by our actions and not by who we were born to or where. Not by what we believe but by what we choose, by whom we choose to be in spite of our beliefs or because of them.

Why do you hate me?

You have no reason to.

But that doesn’t matter to blind hatred, does it?