He hates her,

and that’s all he thought,

over and over the words turning in his head,

like the shutter of an old film camera.

He hates her,

he thought as he dipped his quill in his pot of ink,

dots of dark inky night splattering on his oak desk,

as dark as the color he acts his heart is.

He wrote her name time after time.

Jude.

Jude.

Jude.

He dug the tip of his quill so deep into the papyrus sheet that her name became carved into the oak table,

and it wasn’t the only place that it was carved.

Jude.

Jude.

Jude.

He hates her.

His head drops down onto the sheet,

undried drops of ink splashing onto his bronze skin.

His fingers intertwined tightly,

and he slams his fist across the table,

his pot of ink shattering into millions of fragments.

And he cries,

tears falling from his broken heart.

He hates her for everything that she is,

but most of all,

he hates that he wants her.