I have seen mothers bleed their eyes out;

I have walked across women enslaved in a whimpering heart,

I had heard from my grandmother;

That the moon came home before my grandfather,

And I also heard how the whole world trembled;

Every night my grandfather walked into the abode.

My eyes could see it in a mirror;

How every evening my father played ‘’Bata’’ on my mother’s body,

And the whole house began to sing like a market-square;

As I watched mother move her lips aggressively with dying teeth.

I continued to see scary shadows;

And hear sounds of a monster from that night,

I, therefore, sat my mother down and gave her my two ears.

I even asked why she buried the voice of her anguish?

“The dark nights were silenced for your own morning,” retorted her.

A river suddenly appeared in my mother’s eyes:

‘’Your father was like an orange,’’ she said. 

Then, she whispered into one of my ears and told me;

‘’Days started raining bitterly the nights after I gifted him my ring finger.’’

As the moon passed me by;

I began to see every man in the clan of my father and forefathers,

I saw love like colored hypocrisy concealed with beauty,

Then, I said to myself never to die inside like mothers before me.

I have spoken wisdom into my heart;

To let it love like an infant, and my brain;

To guide my legs from stones on this journey

So that when I metamorphose into a woman,

I will not see horror with my children that haven’t smelled the earth.

Olaseni Kehinde Precious is a prolific writer, marketer and digital Entrepreneur. She finds great delight in the literary and commercial world.

Photo by Samantha Qeja from Pexels