“Content of Hate”

My heart breaks every day now. Someone else’s daughter taken away. The friend of a friend of a friend of a friend handcuffed and dragged down stairs and into the street. A worker beaten with fists by one, two, three, four, five, six, seven weaponized and disguised modern KKK. Masks instead of white hoods, but they inherited their black souls from grandfathers long dead. They pummel priests and pastors, and rip children from safe, loving parents. They kill because they can.

We know how they want this to end. Goebbel’s guidelines play out with each press conference. Blame the victim who can’t speak for herself—she’s dead. Blame the victim who stood up to witness their cruelty. He’s dead, too. Blame the five-year-old in his blue capped innocence. Blame the two-year-old who should’ve had better parents. 

Their venom poisons every word they utter, every thought they present through distortion. They force themselves into our lives daily by creating their own content of hate. 

Opposition surprises them. In their warped world of inhumanity, they cannot imagine anyone uniting in persistent, frustratingly legal resistance. Horns and whistles sounded in warning, phones raised high to record their brutality, doors locked against them when they think there should be approval.      

Streets flooded with humanity screaming, “FUCK ICE! GO HOME!”

Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

This song, "Seconds to Live" came to mind today. 

"Isolation Response"

 

            I woke up in the middle of the night with a slight headache and a matching echo of discomfort in my throat. Nothing bad–something I would’ve ignored in the past. With mental sirens sounding loudly, my new response went into hyper speed. Opening the medicine cabinet, I grabbed Mucinex DM and quickly downed a tablet. Scooping up a new box of Vicks and my thermometer I headed to the family room to set up a sleeping area that removed me from the rest of our household. I returned to the bathroom long enough to spray surfaces with Lysol. With my warmest robe and pillows snuck from the bed, I shifted quietly into the other room. In the darkness, I snuck into the kitchen to add to my disinfectant arsenal: more Lysol spray and hand sanitizer. I grabbed a new mask and added two bottles of water, placing everything on the table next to the couch.

            I fell back asleep easily, but upon waking I realized that our household, like many others, no longer can ignore a nighttime onset of a stuffed nose or slight fever. With both the flu and COVID on the rise, symptoms I ignored in the past become warnings to medicate and isolate as soon as possible. I woke up before dawn and found that a normal temperature raised my spirits. The slight headache and sore throat remained as a shadow of the night before. I drank a bottle of water and settled back into sleep.

            For the rest of the day, I wore a mask around my family when they came in to the room. I stayed snoozing on the couch watching disaster movies. I took a second dose of medication even though my symptoms were gone. Waking up this morning with my usual energy level, I’m thankful that whatever ailed me passed within a few hours once a tablet hit my system.

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman