Ode to Awesome

This piece was performed in many places including Brave New Voices 2015, Louder than a Bomb 2016, and the Cascadoo Festival in 2016.

Thank you, Hitler
You are awesome!
Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
The first to publicize Anti-Tobacco
Even fighting against animal cruelty!
All while you were denied a real family and a proper education
Truly inspiring
And when you climbed your way to the top
You rationed, 
splitting scarce food
splitting rare to find cocoa
and because everyone wanted more chocolate 
Mr. Ferrero helped us all out 
mixing in some nuts
and made my favorite
Nutella.
So thank you, Hitler
For Nutella
You cunning tyrant
You changed a nation with just the slide of your tongue
You were a poet, an artist.
And your words guided everyone
reeling them into what you devised
You told speech after speech in front of millions
no, billions
but you spoke to each person individually
Whispering your ignorant nonsense into each of their ears like the devil that you are
You wanted racial hygiene?
You wanted blond hair, blue eyes
Look in the mirror, Hitler
Never visited a concentration camp?
What? Were you too scared to see what you created?
Oh, poor me, I’m too innocent to witness those horrors
Well here’s a reminder
Nutella brings obesity
Your Nobel was a hoax
You smoked for 27 years of your life
You properly rationed food with only your “people”
And you don’t even know the meaning of anti-animal cruelty
Humans are mammals, mammals are animals
You were a walking contradiction
who pushed every Jew into hiding
pushed them into leaving
pushed them into Palestine
pushed them into fighting for a home
A home that you destroyed
People say that it’s good that they were fighting back
But, Hitler
They were fighting my people
And when my people tried fighting back,
we became terrorists because of you
but now you’re dead 
and people are still fighting because of you
You left your mark so deep that it bled through 
every single page of 
every single book known to man
You destroyed nearly an entire population of people
using only the movement of your lips
You intricately painted the way of every supporter
with your undiscovered artist’s fingertips
and filled canvases with the blood of the “unclean”
Including your own.
You may be dead,
But I need you to understand, Hitler, 
when I say thank you, 
I don’t mean it to be grateful
I blame you for making me look like a terrorist
and when I call you awesome, 
I don’t mean to call you amazing
You fill me with fear
So I thank you, Hitler
You truly are awesome
for showing me that mass manslaughter can really happen
for showing me that man can listen to lies and still make that big of a mistake
because haven’t you noticed
the way men still praise your skills
the way men still kill for you
the way men are still eating Nutella
Hitler, men never learn.

​-Hawa Rahman