THE WILLOW WIDOW

ABUDU-BHADMUS OMOLABAKE

My little window has become my companion

The only proof there is a world beyond my deep agony:

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The green field contrasting the dark hole I’m in.

My grief cloaks me like rain clouds.

Here, where joy once lived,

Echoes dead silence

And the wall of my hut

Closes in, choking me with blind sanity.

Now, I wear the robes of rags,

Condemned to a life of penury

And my beauty has turned sin

That I bleed of rejection.

The billowing wind whispers my fate,

It flows cold in my veins reminding me of how I fell for fantasies at the stream:

The same whispers of how our heart will be one

How we wished for ìbejì

How we offered the gods our vow.

The visions of our past come alive again before me,

Reflecting how I surrendered to him my heart, flesh, essence

All for the vanity of love

And now, narrow is the line between love and hate!

He left me to pay the price for a debt we both owe.

He sleeps endlessly in eternity

Leaving me in the wake of his family’s wrath.

My cheeks have turned hollow

And now I’ve turned a shadow of myself

And blessed with the curse of pity and shame.

Cursed be my feet for raking this terrible path of destiny.

I’ve turned a disease to society,

Left with half a heart and my bones rattle with insecurity.

Shoulders once thought to be friends now turn cold leaving me to

The thorny hands of pain.

My name comes with a hush:

An abomination to mention.

I scream death to the dead:

Death to the world that drained me of colours

Leaving me with black garment of a torn silks scattered at my floor.

Alas!

A rain bird visits with its flaps on my sill

Coming with clouds of hope,

Humming a song to strengthen my bones.

“Sarafa will live,

Help is on its way

Braze yourself against life’s storm

Woman of strength, lengthened are your days.

Hope again better days will come.”

And like an oiled hinge during Harmattan,

I lay my bald head against a pillow dreaming of my promised tomorrow.

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ABUDU-BHADMUS OMOLABAKE

is a creative who expresses her artistic abilities in writing stories, poetry, drawing/painting, singing and spoken word. She is passionate about the African culture and hopes to bring it to the light. She loves helping others and spreading hope. She works with 24artbeats, an NGO. Her work has appeared in the Songs of Peace anthology. She also shares some of her poems on her blog: livingwords.home.blog. She is currently studying Mass-Communication in the University of Lagos.