Drafts from the Archives: I am trying not to hate you (2015 or 2017)
I used to write out random scene ideas for plays I hoped to write one day. Here's the beginning of one - it starts with the ending of a toxic relationship.
A bedroom with two twin single beds. The scene is tense. The room is silent and sparsely furnished. A man and a woman stand apart but facing each other, only their portrait silhouettes clearly visible initially as the dimmed lights brighten to reveal her face. His face remains in the shadows.
Him: I hope you don’t hate me.
Her: Do you? Do you really? What difference would it make to you either way? More for my sake than yours, I am trying not to hate you. But you haven’t made it easy. Because it’s not what you do or what you’ve done, it’s who you are.
She pauses, moves towards him slowly, regarding him, as though seeing someone for the first time, then tilting her head slightly and looking at him as though he were someone she suddenly recognises.
It’s seeing your intentions clearly in the light.
She quickly moves away from him over to the window and whips open the curtains letting in bright, morning light. Turns back to him. He shields his eyes with his hand, turning away slightly, and taking a few steps back.
Now I can see through your facade. This pretend person you present to everyone. Half man, half nothing. Knowing you’re selfish, spiteful and mean for no reason other than this is the only way you know how to exist.(Pause) I’m thinking about all the ways you’ve tried to hurt, humiliate and manipulate me, thinking there would be no repercussions. That’s how grounded you are in this wretchedness.
He sits on the edge of one of the beds. She sits down opposite him on the other, but looks searchingly towards the ground while she tries to find her words.
Trying to Love you... in earnest...drained me of my energy. I’ve been suffocating. This ending is the first time I’ve tasted air in 2 years.
Looking up to him now, and holding eye contact. She grazes her neck with her fingers absent-mindedly.
It got harder to breathe around you. You steal my voice, my joy, my peace when you’re here. But - but - something else you’ve convinced me I need is missing when you’re gone. I don’t even know how to make sense of it, but I know you know what you’ve done goes deeper than what people can see. You try to take my sense of self with you each time you go. Like it belongs to you. Like some kind of trophy. You made me hate myself!
She smiles now, almost amused.
How do you do it? Does it feel good to be this toxic? Do you disgust yourself? Is this why you don’t sleep anymore? Are you haunted by the demons you’ve created? Are you trying to do good but failing, or is it just that you don’t know how to be better than you are? Because you’re the worst. I don’t say this to make you feel bad - I am not sure that’s possible anyway. But it’s important that you know I know your truth. I see you for who and what you really are and there’s no light, no beauty or love. There is just you and the darkness that surrounds you.
She stands and looks at the door. He walks towards her and reaches for her arm. She snatches it away from him, silencing whatever words were about to come out of his mouth.
Him: I -
Do not touch me! (she hisses). Or speak to me again. I never want to see your face or hear your voice again. You’ve had so much time to… after all this time, you are still… I’m doing this for both of us. I’ll finally be free of everything about you, and you will have to live with yourself - the greatest punishment of all. I truly couldn’t think of anything worse. I feel sorry for you. You. You are the consequence of your actions. You are the shadow. You have never surrendered to light or Love, looking down on it as weakness to exploit, and so you are sadness, emptiness and despair. You are your own karma, and a lifetime in your mind and body is the hell most people fear when they die.
(pause)
Hate you (She scoffs). I don’t hate you. I don’t need to hate you. I pity you.
She walks over to the door, opens it and gestures for him to leave.
To live like you is to suffer, and you will.
2025 Reflections
When I wrote this I was fixated on all the things we don’t get to say at the end of really bad relationships. The ones that leave you wounded. The most honest and sometimes the worst thoughts you have never leave your mouth. I wanted to draw those out. To have someone say out loud the thoughts you keep in your head when you play back a conversation and regret all things you could have said but didn’t.
When a bad relationship ends, when you look back at an experience and know you’ve suffered, when you recognise cruelty and look it in the eyes, the thing you often seek is an apology or explanation, when what you really want is karma or justice. Sometimes you get neither. I am of the opinion that apologies don’t really do much - usually far less than you hope they will - even if you get one.
So where does that leave you? Where hatred and resentment might brewing is also fertile ground for forgiveness. Forgiveness is personal work that can take a lifetime to finish. And so, sometimes you have to make peace with your unresolved feelings. Make peace with the injustice of it all. The thing to remember is that those who hurt others also suffer. Because after all the damage is done, with a trail of misery following them around, in the aftermath, sometimes living with yourself is the greatest punishment.