At Three In The Morning Poem by Martins Akhoeneto

At three in the morning,
when the restless roads had fallen still,
a husband came home
with suspicion beneath his ribs.

He had made a second home,
hoping distance would make peace
where quarrels had made war.

But rumours grow teeth in darkness.

A stranger had entered, they said.

So he returned quietly,
carrying questions
his heart already feared to answer.

He opened the door.

And there, beneath the dimness,
betrayal lay beside his wife.

Then anger broke the room.

Two men struggled
where love had once slept.

A blade flashed.

Steel entered flesh.

And suddenly,
the quarrel was no longer about a marriage.

It was about breath.

About blood.

About a man
reaching for morning
and feeling it move beyond his grasp.

The stranger fled.

A scream followed
a tale of robbers
hurled into the night
before truth could cross the threshold.

But dawn is a poor keeper of secrets.

It gathers footsteps,
fear,
the tremor in a hurried lie.

They carried Abdulateef away.

The hospital fought for him.

Death won.

And somewhere between
the darkness and dawn,
a husband became a name
his family would learn to speak
in the past tense.

The house remained.

Walls stood.
Doors opened.
Morning entered
without knowing what had happened there.

But some rooms
never surrender a night.

Three in the morning
will remember.

Not the rumours.
Not the quarrel.
Not who was right.

Only how quickly
suspicion found a weapon,
how anger crossed a line
no hand could uncross,
and how one night
closed a lifetime.

Some betrayals break hearts.

Some suspicions poison homes.

But when anger takes the hand
that should have reached for peace,
tragedy keeps no score.

It only takes.