He Cried Poem by Deluke Muwanigwa

He Cried

There was stinging under the skin of his eyelid
The orb wetted with salty water
His nostrils stung with spontaneous secretions
And he wailed like on the day he was born.

'Where have you been, mom! ', He cried.

He was born in a home rich with forced silence
His siblings' eight ears too precious to listen to him
Their eight eyes only reserved to pity him
Their eight hands recoiling always away as they would from a leper.

He wondered whether the man before him was really his progenitor
He knew the woman before him was a step from his mother
He knew his mother was given the marching orders
Her maiden looks having been distorted by his birth
and the ravages of nature and time
having taken their toll.

His mother turned her back that day when he was a toddler
and never looked back
Never remembered the pain of childbirth on his birth
The joy of carrying another life in her
The joy of seeing the progression of a boy to a man

And as soon as his mother's silhouette fell beyond the horizon his world came tumbling before his eyes
A new 'mother' coming to replace his mother
her tummy ballooning, already full with child

His father metamorphosed to a demon
His affection now reserved for the new wife
And the four children she dropped before him
And these half brothers and sisters were taught to hate him
To abuse him and treat him as an outcast

And they perfected the art and science of hatred
Much to the delight of the new mother
and the sadistic glee of his father

So, at the age of sixty, when he heard the news
that, his maternal mother was alive and sought him
The lump in his throat grew to press on his oesophagus
And rested on his pharynx and larynx and the epiglottis
making him belabour in breathing
and he cried.

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