The weasel

Entry Title: On Hatred (and the Weasel Who Birthed It)

I have known hatred.

Not the theatrical kind that makes for good poetry. Not the burning, impulsive brand you hear about in songs or tales, where someone lashes out in a fit of rage and calls it passion. No, mine has been quieter. Older. Patient. It sits in my gut like a swallowed stone—solid, cold, immovable.

And it began, as many things do, with the weasel.

Let me be clear. This is not a metaphor. He is an actual weasel. A real one. Sinewy, sharp-eyed, with a mouth like a rusted trap and a nature as foul as the waste behind a butcher’s den. He used to live near my sett, years ago. Not near enough to be a neighbour—close enough to be a problem. He was the kind of creature that made noise just to hear his own echo. He didn’t speak; he spat. He didn’t visit; he invaded. And his presence filled the undergrowth like rot.

He hated me first, I think. That’s how it starts, often. With someone else’s resentment pressing against your peace like a finger prodding a bruise. He mocked the way I kept my sett. Called it soft. Called me soft. Called the herbs I grew fussy little weeds. He laughed when my mother passed. Loudly. Called it the natural order.

That was the moment something inside me turned. A cold click. The hate didn’t explode—it settled. Nestled in my bones like winter.

And once it was there, it grew.

Hate is not rage. It is architecture.

It builds itself slowly, brick by brick, out of every slight, every smirk, every dismissive shrug. It builds until you live inside it without even noticing. Until you mistake it for shelter. Until it feels like part of you.

I used to rehearse arguments with him in my sleep. I’d wake up with my jaws clenched and my claws flexed, having outwitted him in imaginary debates where I always had the last word. I muttered retorts while stirring my tea. I imagined him flattened by a falling oak. Laughed. Then felt guilty. Then didn’t.

I hated him in stages.

I hated how he could twist truth so that even I doubted my own memories.
I hated the way he made other animals flinch but somehow like him.
I hated that I knew he would never think of me again while I obsessed over every snide comment.
I hated how much of me he occupied.

Because that’s the horror of hate—it takes up residence in the one place the hated can’t touch: your mind.

He didn’t have to be present to ruin my day.
He didn’t have to speak to make me mutter to myself.
He didn’t have to do anything at all, because he’d already planted himself in the quietest corners of my head.

And there is no eviction process for hate.
You cannot simply decide to be free of it.
You must survive it.

Hate is hungry.

It eats joy first.
Then reason.
Then peace.
It leaves you suspicious of good days, wary of kindness, exhausted by your own thoughts.

It wraps itself around your spine and makes you bitter when the sun shines. It makes you scoff at laughter. It makes you cold to those who have done nothing wrong. Because hate doesn’t stay contained. It leaks. It infects. It warps the way you move through the world.

And the worst part?
Sometimes it feels good.

Righteous. Powerful.
Like a fire in a freezing forest.
Warmth in the belly.
Purpose in the chest.
Until you realise the fire doesn’t keep you warm.
It keeps you alone.

I didn’t hate the weasel because he hurt me. I hated him because he made me become someone I didn’t recognise.

He turned me into a creature who paced at night, jaw tight, heart heavy, tail twitching with imagined arguments. A badger who snapped at friends. Who forgot the scent of lavender. Who stopped watching the stars.

He made me despise myself.

But here’s the truth I’ve clawed free, through the brambles and bitterness:

Hate is not a weapon—it’s a mirror.

You think you’re aiming it outward, but it reflects inward. You think you’re burning them, but it’s you who smoulders.

I moved. Eventually. Packed up my things and left the sett I’d built so carefully. I told others it was the damp, or the foxes, or the forest growing louder. But really, it was him. Or rather, the part of me he took up residence in.

The hate came with me, of course. It always does, at first.

But distance helps. So does silence. So does time.

Now, I still hate him.
But it’s quieter.
Contained.
Filed away like a letter never sent.

And in its place, I am building something else.
Not forgiveness, no. I owe him nothing.
But freedom.
And that is enough.

Because the best revenge on those who hollow you out is not becoming hollow.
It’s rebuilding.
It’s remembering.
It’s making tea and planting herbs and watching the stars again.

It’s writing this.

So if you, like me, have been consumed by hate, I want you to know:
You are not wicked. You are not broken.
You are wounded. And you are learning.

And in the slow unravelling of that hatred,
there is a kind of grace.

Yours with tea, thorns, and truth,
Ramson Badger
(Speaking softly from beneath the brambles)