DESPERATION

She works in the kitchen

But her ears are in the bedroom

Alert and protective of her infant cradle

One eye is on the road

Awaiting the arrival of her beloved

As the other works with her hands

To put great taste on the table

But her welcoming goes sour.

 

Her beloved comes with drunkenness again

A friend she’s been battling with for years

Each day she thinks of the betterment of the next

Which has failed to arrive

Today, her mouth must go from eating and smiling

To talking

The talking goes wrong

And her mouth bleeds

 

She follows up to the room

And sees her cradle broken

With her precious little self

She screams and screams

Until the room floods with beings

But drunkenness still holds her beloved turned enemy

Many hold them together;

Her beloved and wicked drunkenness

 

She lifts the one she failed to protect,

Many hold her and take the remains of her little one

Many console and wail with her

But none she figures out is in her,

Feeling what she feels and knowing her loss

Her food cries for attention in the kitchen

But she holds what’s left of her soul and flees

 

Both families agree on the view

That Drunkenness was the one to blame

A woman has no right to lay blames

And must always submit no matter what

She lifts herself from their midst

Gets into her room, packs her things

And goes out, out to wherever

Wherever society will mourn with her

 

She immerses herself in petty work

And cries herself to sleep each day

Until a human brings a kerchief

To wipe her sea of eyes dry

First the fear, then she is assured

She takes him to trial and he wins the case

She decides by her own discretion

Never to have a family outside this man

 

And so it goes that she was orphaned

And her church is her family

Holding her hand down the aisle 

Is one bishop who knows nothing

She thinks God knows it all

But is taking her side

Because only he knows

What she truly feels inside.

   Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2014