I’ve been thinking a lot lately about hating
What eats at the heart of hate
Because you know I hate people every day
I hate tourists on Oxford Street
I hate children on the tube
And I hate slow walkers stopping me getting to my train
I wanna grab their faces, say with all that rages
Get out of my fucking way

But i don’t, because I know my hatred is a ghost
It’s a quick-flicked switch
A brief-lit wick
It's a fake shade of hate
Just a frustration of place
I mean don’t get me wrong I’m not a saint
I dislike a fair few people
But that’s not the same as hating
That’s not the same as wanting to stamp on their faces

Haters always gonna hate they say
And in some places if you ain’t got hatred you ain’t got status
So let’s play with the face of hate
Hate me for a moment
Hate everything i am

Hate me because I am different to you
Hate my words and my brothers too
Hate me for my body
That ends at my fingertips
Hate my skin, my pigmentation
Hate me for the sensations I share with another in bed

Hate me for my private moments
Hate the tears I've shed and the hopes I’ve shared
Hate my thoughts and fears and dreams
Hate the man I might yet be

Then take your hate away, and make it something great
Nurture your hatred
Feed it and mould it like clay
Stoke at its embers until its coals glow red
Sculpt it like glass being blown
Till it fits the shape of your soul
And hate will heat you in the cold
Hate will be there when you’re alone

(When you’re alone)

It’s about immigrants
It’s about antisemitism in Hungary
And Pegida rising in Germany
It’s about Orlando
It’s about invading mosques
It’s about a jungle in Calais and a black boy shot in the streets in the USA
It’s looking at a human race, that sometimes seems consumed, and wasted, by hatred
And standing up to that and saying, I am not afraid