It is not as if
every single day
I find you more distasteful
than the last, but
there is certainly
some sort of an upward trajectory.

It didn’t used to be this way.
There was a long time
during which I trusted you
believed in you
had some limited faith in your abilities.
Those days have long passed.

Much of it
has to do with the stories I’ve been told of you
and the ways I’ve seen you interact with others.
It certainly didn’t help
that you failed to include me
in so many of your reindeer games.

I must admit
most days
I have been blessed to not think of you
but somehow
these last few months
you are a plague on my memories.
You are entering my existence
far more often than I would like.

Normally in my writing
this is where I’d include a clever reversal
suggesting that my outward claims secretly hide
some sort of shamed affection,
but my feelings for you
are not clever.
There is no subtlety in my abhorrence
just a desire to be done with you
that seems to be belayed
by this very writing I’ve undertaken.

Tomorrow perhaps
I’ll be able to put you in your proper place
and not dislike you more than today
but somehow
I doubt it.