If I hold a grudge with my enemy
And he holds a grudge back
How then am I different
If we're all the same bad
If I love not my enemy
And they love me not back
How then am I different
If it's love we both lack
When Jesus said
'turn the other cheek'
He meant 'be strong'
Cause anger is a weakness
He meant hold on, you win
Cause God is your witness
Your mother's womb must be shiny
It wrapped the most beautiful gift
Your presence here must be timely
Your every breath is a signature of the divine
I can't tell
in what language
you studied love
I know,
However,
I can't do with bullets
what you do with words
Racism to me is an understanding
Unlike an experience
Yet it doesn't feel good to be home
Our shared language is the lack of peace
I understand
But my enemy is one of my own
Your nightmare is a bullet from a man of a different skin color
Mine is black
But the man still seeks the death of me
Like yours, he's a monster on the inside
Some days he wears a black uniform
Other days he's dressed in trads
Some days he's on the streets walking with guns loaded with bullets
Other days he's on podiums with guns loaded with words
It's all the same to me, either way he shoots
Some days to take my life
Other days to take my freedom
Either way, he moves
Without any remorse
What it looks like to be black in Nigeria is to see a father strangling his own son
When a man forgets
the thing about roots
He sits by a meal
And hides a morsel in his boots
At the end of the cabaret
When he rises to leave
Feet drenched
Mind enslaved to greed
He soon finds
With each step planted in the ground
His feet harbour maggots
Yet too late to turn around
Tomorrow is pregnant
The man knows
Yet he knows not
What tomorrow holds
Judge Me
When my heart becomes cold
Frozen in the winter of selfishness
Buried in coffins littered with broken bones
Judge me
When the tides are in my favour
But I raise the shorelines high enough
to keep me from helping my neighbor
Please, judge me
Save me from myself
Judge me,
Before my conscience is put to bed
From a sad place I scribbled 'happy'
With a smile strong enough to lift the wind
I remember childhood fun times and play memories
With adulthood came the mood swings
The swings into joy and fearless adventures
The gravity of the pains that follow
The times we spend counting our losses
The drunken brawls with impending sorrows
I remember you promised to shame my worries
For to trust is a cross to everyday carry
I remember there's light at the end of every tunnel
With cracks in mine, I see signs of light already
Everyday,
I remind myself
that life could have
snuck out overnight
The one thing about love
that holds both fear and hope
Is that one day,
The whole world will become a deep hole
And my climb back to steadiness
will depend on how steady your hands hold.
Dear ol' friend,
How long has it been?
The new years have climbed
on the back of the old since we've seen
The memories,
They bring us back
They draw smiles on our faces
To hastily remember the good times we had
Dear ol' friend,
A little birdie told me
It said upon my friend come a tragedy
It said that death called dibs on one of family
The sadness,
Took heavily over me
That the time to tarry may end
That I travel across seas to see my ol' friend
We get old
Our skin folds
They pour out over our lips;
The stories once told
We get cold
We become just bones
We cease to exist
The world carries on
We never asked for love that grows weary in the heat of the sun
We dared not!
Don't you see our scars?
Do they not tell stories of a fiery furnace?
We asked for love,
the kind that catches a breath in the quiet of the night
For we walked through fire
And found our way unto the streets of gold.
— Tobi Toun
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