You are tough and strong
and possibly unbeatable,
and I might just hate you
despite my best efforts
and my best misgivings.

I’ve heard it said
that hate is just
the inverse of love
and while I’m drawn to
tear down misconceptions,
I tend to agree because I’ve
seen Smallville and Unbreakable.

And now, through thinking
analogously, I come
to the point and to the question:
Do I love you? (or) Do I hate you?
For there can be no in-between.
And while some may label my logic
a fallacious, false dilemma, I,
respectfully, disagree.

Returning to the analogues, you
are Ender, ripe with potential,
potentially holding the future
in your young but growing hands;
the strong respond in loving
confidence; the weak in fearful
violence, attempting to crush
before being crushed themselves,
yet Ender only crushed in self-defense.

So without the crushing weakness the
prospect of crushing destruction disappears;
if only I can be strong enough
to allow you to be strong, strong
enough to choose love, rejecting
the weakness of hate, responding
to you as a friend and not a foe.