The Veil of Motherhood

I am a woman, bearing the weight of ancestral suffering.

My mother, fleeing a war-torn land,

fell for a man cloaked in perjury,

who planted her dreams,

never to take root.

I am but a ghost of the nurse she should have been.

Instead, her hopes lay barren in the basin of stained dishes.

While she mops the footprints of a life she never chose,

pouring tea for a man whose leisure knows no bounds,

his muddied soles mar the

hardwood

floors.

Her anger blossomed in a world demanding her very essence.

My body, beaten like a piñata,

as her life slipped away amidst the

clamour

of small hands and

hungry mouths,

leaving her with the bitter taste of

motherhood.

The only promise he kept was to himself: to do as he pleases.

Why must a mother sacrifice for the father?

Beyond the mantle of motherhood, the world forgets— she is her own woman.

Rage embedded in my loins,

borne of all the ancestresses before me,

will die with me,

never to inherit my daughter.

--Ria Luhnafik, 8/9/2024

Theme : Social Criticism, Others -- "Family: Motherhood"

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