Dirt, Death, and Seed

I can’t stand the faces
  that can’t understand me in me,
and the way I am who I hate
  and the way  I hate who I seem to be
but, because they won’t leave
I simply tolerate them with that cold toleration
  that so many push upon their enemies.

Someone once told me
  that no one really wants to be tolerated
because it’s a cold, ignorant sort of feeling
that glances once, then looks away;
because its easier to ignore than to love a thing
when that thing is one we hate.

And how can I do anything better
  if it’s me inside of me I hate?
Love grows up in the soil of love,
or so I have heard them say.
If so, then who plants that beginning seed?
Oh, perhaps heaven knows the secret
    to the better side of me,
and, if so, I pray
    that God would bring the sun and send the rain
to let love grow up into the tree
  that will cover over the things I only tolerate
and let roots of love take their place.