I got some 'splainin to do.

This was originally an over-reaction to a sticky situation that I don't feel like going into. Suffice it to say it was one of those things where people who had been perfectly nice and polite had done some things that would seem, from the outset, completely out of character, but in retrospect made perfect sense. Let's say that it was illustrative of that lowest instinct of the human animal, that impulse to strike out and injure another out of sheer spite, regardless of whether actual harm had been done, regardless of actual offense.

Of course, none of that actually happened, but I was afraid it might, so I over-reacted.

After the over-reaction, which precipitated a chiding from the original subject of the over-reaction, I decided that what I had here was too neat to give up on: an abstract of emotion, a description of a common phenomenon that I was pretty sure anybody over the age of 16 would be able to identify with in some way-- always a dicey proposition, but after a while, on good days, you forget the diceyness of it and just assume you're right.

So I started fleshing it out, tacked on the Latin terms as a confessional conceit, and concentrated on the central theme: how do we deal with this notion of hatred? Do we give in and hate or hold out and remain nuetral? And if we manage that, what's next? Is it possible to strike a balance, forgive the acts of hatred commited by oneself or by others? Or is it necessary to sever that part of one's life, cut off the persons and places, dim the memory and move on?

When all was done I had a nice, circular piece full of what is termed, in this day and age, the inevitable dash of pretension. And, frankly, I love it. I love it indeed.