The Opposite of Love  

Middle class suburban white boy
Looking for a bigger toy
Anything to satisfy
Your manufactured desires

Look at the world with cold, jaded eyes
Look with disdain on your fellow human beings

You say the fight for human rights is a lost cause
Let them die before they overpopulate
Give them food if they agree to mass sterilization
The end result turns out the same

As I listen to you, I realize
How far we still have to go
Before justice is something more than a distant hope

It hasn't been that long since slavery and apartheid
The human race still practices genocide

So turn on your big screen, status symbol TV
Numb your mind with the latest sound bytes

Middle class suburban white boy
Hiding in your temple of hypocrisy
With your genetically modified food and pornography

You tell me the fight for human rights is a lost cause
And one day, we'll all be whores

You say my friend who recently immigrated from Africa
Is only kind and spiritual because of the western
influence
That stripped him of his savagery
Your xenophobia is hidden beneath the transparent
guise of multiculturalism

But my friend has only been here for three months
Speaking in broken English, he tells me how much
He loves all people, light and dark

The opposite of love is not hate
It is indifference
And I pray that I do not become
Indifferent to you

© 2006 Margaret Haugen