The mere thought of you
Sucks the light from the day
You desiccate a blooming rose
The fullness of life empties at your whispered name
All color turns gray
You are a cruel and vicious foe
Indiscriminate and unrelenting
Selfishly consuming everyone’s joy
You leave no one untouched
The weight of you is too heavy
The mention of your name brings fear
More questions than answers
You hide from discovery
Making your confirmation a draining agony
An arrogant villain, you have no manners
You are timeless and eternal
A god of death to the young and the old
Draining every speck of warmth from us
Destroying everything you touch
Leaving misery, bitter and cold
Antithesis of all that’s good
Venomous hatred for you is all we have
You know not love, peace, or joy
Upheaval, anguish, and broken hearts
Plundering our souls with your forsaken staff
Are you the devil himself?
His minion of vindictive wickedness?
Goodness is not found in you.
Does this give you unfettered pleasure?
The very thought, to me, is ludicrous.
I hate you as a hero hates a villain
I fear you as a thirsty field fears desiccation
I curse you in every waking hour
In sleepless dreams, you are the one who is destroyed
I rob you of your victorious domination
A countdown has begun
The veracity of your presence, or lack thereof, laid to rest
Rejoice in the utter absence of your sight
Throw open the drapes to see the sun shine
As day overcomes the darkness of night
I plead and pray for goodness and hope
That you won’t touch a loved one’s life
That you won’t ruin two little girls
A family’s, a sibling’s, and in-laws’ happiness
Pass by, be gone, and release us from your strife
Specter, withdraw your ephemeral tendrils of woe
Find mercy, have compassion, even this once
You’ve touched us too often already
My litany to spare us from your wrath
Release us from your vile encumbrance
I cannot see them again; my beloveds suffer at your hands
I don’t know how to endure you yet again
Will they get through you if you visit once more?
My heart aches and screams, please stop
Have pity, give grace, don’t come, restrain
I pray to my Lord that He will revoke your charter
Cancel this empty, eerie, and acrid gloaming
With a single glimmer of His luminescence
For darkness withdraws and flees from light
One command, and He’d rob you of your boasting
I don’t hate much in this life
But you, I loathe and despise
I hate the wake you leave behind
The dire pain you cause when you linger
I yearn for your undoing and demise
(Published on WordPress, 2026)
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Turn that frown upside down. Read something lighter:
Bacon and I Are at Odds
Bacon and I are not on speaking terms. Bacon spat at me. I did nothing to hurt it. All I wanted to do was cook my mushrooms in his beautiful, luscious fat. I wanted the fungus to have the scent of its alluring fragrance to make our mouths drool. And it spat at me.
The C Word ©2026 Spilled Ink for Ink and Echo. All rights reserved.
This is powerful because you never have to name the enemy for us to understand what it represents. ❤️
What stayed with me most is how you give fear a physical presence. It steals color, drains warmth, crushes joy, and turns even hearing its name into something heavy. By addressing it directly as “you,” the poem stops feeling like an abstract meditation and becomes a confrontation.
But I think the most important turn comes near the end.
For most of the poem, this force seems enormous—timeless, cruel, almost godlike in its ability to dominate a family’s thoughts. Then suddenly you begin taking power back:
“I rob you of your victorious domination.”
That line matters.
Because the waiting may still be terrifying, and the outcome may still be unknown, but fear doesn’t automatically get to own every hour before the answer comes.
And then the imagery changes. The darkness gives way to opened drapes and sunlight. That doesn’t feel like false optimism to me. It feels like hope insisting on having a place at the table even while fear is still sitting there.
The final stanza is what really brought the poem home, though. Everything before it is anger directed at the enemy. Then suddenly we see exactly what is being protected: a loved one, two little girls, siblings, in-laws, an entire family whose happiness is tied together.
That’s when the hatred in the poem reveals what is underneath it.
Love.
You’re furious because there is so much worth protecting.
I hope with everything I have that when this countdown ends, those drapes really do get thrown open and the light comes pouring back in. ❤️