Our Moral Failure before the People We Most Despise

Our Moral Failure before the People We Most Despise

Life is a ledger of moments and men,
Of crossings and echoes remembered again;
For all that we are, and all we become,
Are shaped by the many—and shaped by the one.

The faces we cherish, the minds we embrace,
The souls we encounter in time and in space—

Yet deeper than love, more piercing than praise,
Are those whom we shun through the length of our days.

For love, when it blooms in the chambers within,
Grows tolerant roots that cover up sin;
It softens the sharpness of error and fall,
And blinds us to faults we refuse to recall.

We pardon the careless, excuse every flaw,
Give grace without measure, unbounded by law;
Devotion, unquestioned, enthroned in the heart,
Makes reason grow dim and judgment depart.

But hatred—ah, hatred—wears no such disguise,
It strips us bare under watchful eyes;
Before those we scorn, we tremble, we feign,
We wrestle with shadows we cannot explain.

We feel ourselves lesser, uncertain, untrue,
Unworthy of standing, exposed to their view;
And so, in a frantic, defensive display,
We fashion a mask lest we fade away.

Pride rises swiftly, pretense takes command,
We posture, we polish, we forcefully stand;
Yet all of our boasting, our glitter, our guise,
Betray the deep wound that contempt never hides.

To despise is to bury another in thought,
To measure their worth and conclude they are naught;
To hold them in silence, condemned and confined,
A prisoner fashioned in chambers of mind.

Yet strange is the reason such judgments arise—
For often they flourish on baseless surmise;
We loathe not for injury suffered firsthand,
But echoes of stories we scarcely understand.

A whisper, a rumor, a tale poorly told,
Becomes justification for hearts growing cold;
And thus do we wander in prejudice blind,
With verdicts untested, yet firmly assigned.

This word is not spoken to hearts gone astray,
Nor cast to the winds where the faithless ones stray;
For what would you counsel the serpent to spare?
Or bid the fierce scorpion mercy declare?

Nay, this is a mirror for those who believe,
For brethren who wound and yet still would receive;
A call to the living, awakened, aware,
To search the dark roots that quietly ensnare.

For some, it is pride in a hidden degree,
A throne built on “better” they claim to be;
By learning, by status, by age or by name,
They secretly nourish a contemptuous flame.

For others, a leader in silent unrest
May envy the gift in another’s chest;
What should inspire becomes a threat,
And seeds of disdain are quietly set.

And some who are lowly in station and role
Despise those who prosper in body and soul;
For envy, once kindled and left to increase,
Will murder both conscience and inward peace.

Thus, whatever the cause—be it subtle or clear—
We falter the most when the despised are near;
In striving to prove we are wiser or more,
We lose the true self we were fashioned for.

We clothe ourselves finely in vanity’s thread,
With words over-polished and arrogance fed;
Yet under the surface, uneasy and flawed,
We shrink from the gaze we pretend to applaud.

O tragic inversion of virtue and will—
The heart that despises is vulnerable still;
For none that we scorn can diminish our frame,
It is we who are altered—and never the same.

Then measure thy spirit not by love alone,
Nor by seeds of kindness casually sown;
But how thou dost stand, unshaken, composed,
Before the one soul thou hast inwardly opposed.

For strength is not proven in affection’s ease,
But in mastering self when the spirit would seize;
And dignity blooms, steadfast and wise,
When we rise above those we most despise.

For they are not chains, nor authors of fall—
The fault, if it lingers, lies deep in us all;
And the truest of victories one may comprise,
Is conquering self… before judging the despised.

-Oluseyi Ogunbanwo