Survival Tale
by Hameedah Aruwa
Kogi, Nigeria
today,
she sees a thorn and calls it
harmless.
because her heart had been jagged
a thousand times before
in an ocean of
razor sharp thorns,
numbness has become an imminent
response to pain. her sunken eyes
shelter massive
fireballs of agony, buried
beneath dark rings.
It is wise of a brick wall, bereft
of poise; perforated
by crevices to
make bed for its final days.
her soul is the brick wall, only that
her crevices are
rooms for the crumbs of
her seared heart; to the now
vague memories of sparkling sceneries—
when her body was afloat
limpid waters.
yesterday,
when the men gorged on her body! when
they
wagged their tongues
at her innocence and
ridiculed
the sanctity
of the temple between her thighs! they
filched her soul's light bulbs,
and the ensuing darkness
smothered her
beneath soils of crippling
melancholia.
but tomorrow,
she doesn't die. she masters
the art of gluing
the broken pieces
of her existence onto her body. again.
piece by piece. Like solving a jigsaw
puzzle;
like remodeling a broken clay pot—
her soul.
to own a soul is to know pain, but what is
pain but blurry anecdotes of
exhilarating tales?
and as the beams of hope permeate
her skin, she garners strength; injecting
shots of reason into the emptiness that
shrouds her heart. then
she rips them off—
the dark
veils of hovering trammels.
tomorrow. she survives.
Hameedah Aruwa
HAMEEDAH ARUWA is a literary aficionado, a sprouting writer from Nigeria. She writes poetry and prose. She participated in the Prof. Jimoh Talent Hunt, where she emerged the best prose writer in December, 2019. Her works appear or are forthcoming in Praxis Magazine, Sledgehammer lit & Eboquills. She is a poetry lover & looks forward to sharing more of her works. She tweets @Ugbede_Aruwa