The day her water broke was the same day her heart shattered into shards
Between crystals and red rivers
She wailed and wailed until her tear ducts turned into deserts
Hours before, while deciding if she should wait to push, growing more agitated with each tick of the clock,
She cursed his name and his mother’s
And swore she wouldn’t conceive another so readily if he couldn’t even bother to stand by her hospital bedside while she brought their love to life.
She later turned the curses onto herself and the world
When her family and his arrived in batches
Their eyes sullen and dancing across everything else in the room, not meeting her own
Only a few dared to glance at the baby or touch her tiny feet
Confusion struck as to why their closed mouths would hum burial songs in a maternity ward
Everyone else was shy to speak, not wanting to be the harbinger of bad news
But her brother, having been both her tormentor and protector her whole life,
Spoke the words that closed her milk ducts
And sealed away any love she had
Before her young one ever tasted it.
They all held their breaths from then on and refused to untie their tongues
Because no one can tell a mother how to love–that wisdom should be one with her bones
And no one can tell a widow to stop grieving–the forefathers ruled eons ago that to forget one’s husband would surely be a grave betrayal
But was it right to witness such a mother-hunger in silence?
Was it kind to let this love drought ravish a pure child whose only faultless mistake was coming into a world that destroyed her parents?
Was it moral?
Was it ethical?
Would her father allow it or were they all spitting on his grave, the splats of their cowardice shifting the soil and shaking his coffin so he would never know peace for all eternity?
Author’s Note: this poem was inspired by a curious thought on the 1998 US Embassy bombing in Nairobi, the site of which is still referred to many as “bomb blast”, officially commemorated as the August 7th Memorial Park. A question came to mind about what it was like for the loved ones of those who died during the bombing and the resounding psychosocial effects they faced. A study found that mothers who were pregnant and affected by the blast had PTSD symptoms years after the event.
This particular piece highlights the complexity of love, or a lack of it, following traumatic loss and grief.