If Hope is the thing with feathers,

then hate is the thing with thorns.

when the wish to fly flutters within, 

we are grounded by the cutting truth.

Thorns push through the skull,

a crown of furrowed razors;

eyes becoming blunt with rage

hearts weighted like stone.

Do you feel them in the softness

the raw brutality of rage?

The softness of the moment

ripping through the flesh;

and the thing that flies with feathers

becomes the thing with saw-toothed pain.

In the swelling of the anger,

in the fleeting of the hope

comes the sharpness 

of the weaker nature

rooted in its vulgar madness

as the feathers fall from the flock

and sway back down to earth

towards the darkness of the garden

where the thorns grow thick and sharp

and the thing that once had feathers

devolves to broken malice

and sheds the downy coats

to a malignant venomed beast

that reaches through our soft brutality.