Spite Is Also a Freestanding Word

The people who can be spiteful
Are usually disappointed.

Whether they’re justified or not,
Whether there’s as much unfairness

Toward them as they insist there is,
They’re terribly disappointed.

Not everyone who’s a victim
Of an authentic unfairness

Is disappointed, and many
Who are disappointed are not

At all spiteful, or are spiteful
Only briefly before finding

Their kind core personality—
Kind, silly, simply suffering,

But not spiteful. Still, the spiteful,
For whatever reason, are quite

Disappointed, and there’s something
About being disappointed,

That stirs the pot of spitefulness
Until the word snaps its anchor

And starts whipping like a loose wire
Throwing sparks around the dark waves

And you know this isn’t a poem
Nor even an essay on spite

But one of those odd instances
When a word that had been sleeping

Within its own capacity
For havoc slips free from the text.