'Hate Speech', by Connie Woodring
I am an insect, and we hate you as much as you hate us.
Cockroaches, centipedes, spiders, gnats, mosquitos, stink bugs…
They all make you cringe.
But it’s a mixed bag.
You love us when we make your clover honey or pollinate your fruit and vegetable plants.
You love us flitting to your roses, lilies of the valley and carnations so you can adorn your
weddings and funerals.
But even that doesn’t quite work for you.
You create ever more lethal insecticides.
Honey bees and other pollinators are dropping like flies, as they say.
Of course, you hate them, too.
You put up bug zapper lamps on your patios in the summer.
Birds have fewer bugs to eat each year.
We don’t hate birds for eating us.
We’ve been around for a million years without any imbalance of nature.
Indeed, it’s not just us insects who hate you.
Birds don’t like being soaked in oil.
They don’t like their habitats ravaged by wild fires every year,
and God-Bird only knows what you put in our bird seed.
And I don’t have to stop at birds.
Rhinos hunted for their horns, elephants hunted for their tusks, sharks hunted for their fins.
They all hate you.
Yes, we are the meek, and we shall inherit this earth.
It is an earth that would be full of love, if only you would no longer inhabit this planet.
Connie Woodring is an 80-year-old retired psychotherapist who has been getting back to her true love of writing after 45 yeast in ehr real job. She has published her poems in over 50 journals, including one nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She has also published short stories and essays. Her memoir is due to be published by Sucharachee LIterary Magazine in 2026