My mother told me that hatred is a gun in some hands and a tear stained napkin in others. She said that when she was younger she held the gun and got so attached to the power that it took her nearly dying to finally drop it. From then on her anger was crumbled in her hand, a sign of the embarrassment stimming from her inability to fight back. That was until she dropped that too. Then the patch stained paper towel sunk into the ground and her anger grew flowers that thorned when someone went too far. She said that part only comes at the end though, when you get tired of annihilating everything around you or turning the other cheek in the name of peace, when you only hurt the ones who hurt you. 

As I sat at the kitchen table thinking about it all, I asked her what she thought I was holding. She stopped stirring the potato’s and stared at me for longer than i expected. Then she suddenly smiled, 

“you don’t have a gun,” she said, “but you will. I can see it in your eyes love, that kindness will not last you forever.”