#10YearsOn

I agreed to a poem per day for Ramadan with friend of the blog, Taz. Now I have no creative talent so you’d just need to bear with some mediocre writing for this month.

Ten years on. We hate each other but we are still not through with one another. What is it that compels us to stay in this loveless marriage?

We met by a cruel twist of fate. It was hate at first sight with the god-awful Los Angeles smog serving as the backdrop after a long journey across the Kala Pani. We both spoke English but you couldn’t understand me. Literally and also metaphorically.

I understand your hatred. We had a one night stand that lasted a bit too long. And then I cheated. I slept around with many of your women. I even graduated from your high schools, your colleges, and your graduate schools. BUT you had promised me no strings attached and now there’s a noose hanging loose around my neck.

You look at me and see a small brown person. A harmless model minority struggling to make ends meet. But in the same breath, you call me a terrorist, an illegal, a criminal. That’s fine — I understand your need to project your guilt onto others. I’m above your harsh words, rigid labels and blanket categorizations.

You can oppress me but you can never suppress me. You can take me but you can never break me. I’m so free, I’m soaring to new heights with my wings of resistance even while living in a prison of your hatred and contempt. And yet you are the one in chains even while bleeting like a sheep about your land of the free and home of the brave.

You are repressed because you can’t see my worth. You suffer a grave loss when you choose to capture and contain my migrant and fluid body, so ashamed you are of your own shortcomings, of your own inferiority, of your own utter abject failure to address your pathology.

I’m bold, beautiful and brilliant. I want to live long and have many one-night stands that continue into the day. Maybe I will find true love on this quest and maybe I won’t. But I will never belong to you.