enemies

I once had a friend who liked me to hate her. She derived some joy from it, as if she saw hate as a beautiful thing, as if between foes and lovers the former knew the more profound joy. It was frustrating because it seemed she liked to be the one we all hated. I suppose it was a hateful love she tries to win from everyone, or perhaps did not try at all. No warmer than admiration, no colder than a blaze.

I can say it is the strangest thing to feel. Knowing an enemy for many years, he/she begins to grow into a part inseparable of oneself. A sentence of one's Definition. A strand of one's Being. We may hate with all our passion, but ultimately we cannot be without each other, because the other has become in some sense the person each is by being the person each is not--the person one strives to be not.

It's a simple matter of light and shadow, except to each the self is the light.