What Disturbs Me

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us. ~ Hermann Hesse

Egotistical do-gooder know-it-all!
You cannot hear of a problem
without gallant expressions of caring,
condolences, comparison with your own
memories, the bad times, the extreme,
how yours were even worse than theirs.
You criticize, correct grammar,
answer with spite
when to say nothing would be better.
You tell me what to do, how to do it,
but I know  you — you don’t practice
that preaching you so freely give.
I know you well. Because you are me
and the defects I see so clearly in you
I can easily ignore in me.

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