For seven months I drank my tea at the window and allowed the sun to cast its rays over my resolution.
I gazed at the space between but never directly into my neighbours house
for I knew the indifference that awaited me in her window of enmity.
During the seventh month my love swelled and pooled at my fingertips, restless with those un-penned words of indignation,
And so I gazed into her window.
Bleeding from my freshest wound,
just rage unfurled into bitter poems,
reruns of us,
of when you offered the belly of my dignity to feed your enemies, revealed a vengeance owed to me,
not of retribution
but of justice.
During the eighth month I wrestled love and grief, rage and memory,
to save you,
to save you from the recklessness my pain threatened to uncage.
I allowed the waves of your betrayal to break over me and pull me back into the sea of childlike grace within myself.
I did not emerge cleansed, pure, or resolved.
Victorious over my animal lust for vengeance,
yet unsatiated in surrendering my desire to deliver you to the same gallows where you made a pariah of me.
And conflicted with answerless questions.
Is vengeance the natural harbinger of karma and therefore my gentleness; justice interrupted?
Is my enduring love my weakness or my courage?
.

If, I were Indian
I would be A. P. J.
AbdulKalam
descendant son
          And, to  be
          Gandhi's legatee

To marry a young
Nigerian senorita, to
give birth a pretty
And beautiful baby

To copy all I imitated
From my fore fathers
To lead Nigeria and, to
revolutionize the nation

To grow more than
Russia and to be
Like Saudi Arabia

Why o why, must you hate so endearingly?
Must you find reasons to hate, do you not find that futile?
Why is that that we must hate, when our time to love is finite.
Why mustn't we love, even when in hate
knowing, it is love amidst the loathing.

Attitudes, can I change theirs?
Yes, they told
I ripped their souls with words
Did I change?
Not yet, they are still criminals
They rob people on their roads
They **** for wealth, properties

What should I do? Report?
That would be so polite of you
So legal and peaceful
Will I get immediate response
Sure, within two or three
Two or three what?
Years, they said

I might do it myself, next time
I said
Then you’re among them
I think, correction, I believe
They are among them too
Yeah, could be
Are you?
No, no. I like justice against crimes
But, it’s just crime

I once wished every bad to come your way,
after those lies and untruths you said about me.
Then I learned that the sky's deaf for bad prayers,
and after all these years, I think about forgiveness.

I thought you deserved to sink into the deepest hell
for your betrayal; your heart alone was one sickly well.
Yet as I looked at these tired wrinkled hands, I knew,
this hatred wouldn't last if I had my trust renewed.

How the pain repeatedly told me to avenge you,
after one and another shame you put me through.
But my son’s laughter turned this thought to me;
“Will this bitter enmity become my sole legacy?”

I may not be ready to invite you for a tea,
or to drive you to your daughter's wedding.
I'd rather say, I don't hate you as much as I did,
so don't be a stranger the next time we meet.

I wish you well with whatever good you do.
With a lighter heart, my life will be fine too.

Once upon a time, a woman was picking up firewood. She came upon a poisonous snake frozen in the snow. She took the snake home and nursed it back to health. One day the snake bit her on the cheek. As she lay dying, she asked the snake, "Why have you done this to me?" And the snake answered, "Look, *****, you knew I was a snake."