A Coffee Date Poem by Afia Koranteng

The heart remembers what the mind forgets,
The loathing in your eyes, searing on my skin
The disrespect you clothed me in
The simple disregard.
Your 'love', a leash to keep me well within your reach
For your amusement, your fantasies, for your constant trifling.
A girl in her shell, a chattel traded
To be your cook.
To be your nurse.
To be your whore.

I sought only for your approval
Yearned for your admiring eyes
So I stayed,
Through it all, I stayed
Through blood, through tears, through pain
I was an anchor, not by choice, but by the weight of my chains.
Till I realised I was a Dead man with you.

I walked but I was floating
Laughed, but the silence echoed back
I stopped breathing your name like a prayer
And poured into me, all that I had given.

So I gather the bones of the woman you broke,
Stitch the heart torn apart,
Collect the ashes scattered.
Buying flowers I never received, the ones I deserve.
I am no longer yours to bury.