Of single mothers.

We are all pages of sorts, everyday the pencils of life scribble away, the paths we have tread, encounters we have had, tears shed, laughter shared. All etch away at the pages of our being, the book of our lives comes alive little by little.

These are the epistles borrowed from the lives i have known: unsung mothers.

She sits by the edge of the bed and wishes it were the edge of the world so she could dive into an iridescent heaven:peaceful. People have a way of looking at you, like they take away their praises and leave you naked to die in the sun shunned. The single mothers curse, they would gather and add her name to the data base, another corrupt soul to watch out for. The world shrunk, she felt for her mother who would have to endure all the hushed black whispers and vultures that would prey at her alter. Mental feet ferry her to the genesis.

Bathed in the dying vanilla moon, sky on the opium that is love. Ephemeral euphoria fades from her veins: cruel sight restored to herald. Sand grains that tumbled through the hour glass in haste now defy gravity. All that is left behind, scent stained sheets and memories that mural souls. Oh she had heard of these, wondering Casanovas that spoke like June with moon eyes that hold astronomers revelations, bodies like the Renaissance marble David fathered by Michelangelo. Thrift of emotions, generous with their seeds once an occasion. Never had she however, thought she would fall for one, she always thought she would see right through their semblance. Day dreams and lonely nights however, made her a Ray Charles: he breezed into her life.

I nonchalant the sea when i feel the little one kick as if to fight back their loquacious stares that crucify a woman like them for holding the best of a son of man, sing to the tides to allow him to sail well like a warrior alit on his way to Valhalla. Their stares scorch skins, bore through sinews and bones bruising the pneuma. In the immense hollow of my heart, dwell both the raging waterfall and still lake that ignores ripples: facade pillars. I cannot fathom how one can profess love and later use a blunt dagger to split your sky open, watch the stars tumble burgundy like rose petals and pluck your moon and offer it to the night forever. I curse him on days when light neither enters nor leaves this sickened sanctuary and have to breakthrough this blanket of thistles and thorns leaving me marred. I hate him for leaving me alone in the dark, making me a woman of perennial tears that flow searing grey hymn, a changeling in this society thus far. I pray karma would smite all his candles dark so he knows what it feels like. As i make a mattress of the shore sands, the sea within sings to me as if to cease the fire lit on his fathers memory, rivulets flood away the anger. Epiphany, a lantern that hello-ed the dark: I smile and realize the perennial tears watered crevices cradling seeds of forgiveness.

The water breaks and my seaman washes ashore, holds me in his gaze, astronomers revelations in his eyes like his father. He is a letter of sorts, the entelechy of his fathers frailty, heals like dawn promising things new. As i hold his gaze, i stare at his father. I imagine him in lands faraway, I pray his shoulders tire of playing Hercules to his ego and know that flaws are night that give stars shine. I pity him, "to God whom the lines on the palm of thine hand are the paths the sun treads upon , grant me my hearts desire, to hold both my men in my arms before the pendulums tire."

He keeps looking over his shoulder, figments imagined. His demons rise with the setting sun like they were sun of night, rattled leaves startle guilty souls, nocturnal eyes war night shadows that seek only sleep. The smoke trails into the darkness phantoms of truth, remonstrating his run away slave strides, lament on behalf of mother and child abandoned. Chagrined: cascading facades hold rusty shards inherited from his father (what you judge, you become). Sits were the night is lit and cuts out memory of her: the rib that ought sanctum in his bosom, curses his bruised feet for longing home and velvet floors. Dragging his heart behind he sort paths abandoned, forgotten to God: in the cool of melancholy where the mantis forgot how to say prayers. All that rampage, trail of broken aortas like Benghazi sidewalks, he can hear the conscience hounds picking up on his scent. Prayer escape broken hearts like smoke smoke trails to the hallways of heaven: the luster of night stars search lights seeking a fugitive with sins to answer for. They wont take me alive, on a bed of rock miasma blankets grey: bane dew in vials, raindrops that rain black promising quiescence. Night will be grave enough, sinners have no epitaphs, my sins will be the grey roses should Christ come looking for me. Life slipping away, visceral anguish he imagines this is hades, she comes to him in the delirium of death a light in a world night like an angel, cuddling a cherub in her hands. She reaches for him and places a sweet lavender kiss on his lips and whispers "i forgive you." He gasps violently filling his lungs with cold air jolting him to life as if the tears flowing down his cheeks were drowning him. A choke and a gasp, macabre uncoils her prey and looks on clad in ire feeling cheated. Shes not there but her presence lingers on sun. He imagines if God had a face it would be hers, forgiving. He gets up visceral anguish reminding him all things easy have consequences, follows the trail of broken aortas to her and the little seaman off the amniotic tides.

These are the nyaya's (tales) from a place where the willow weeps no more, glad in grey. These are the stories of who we are, where we come from, the stories lost on us, the stories mouths forgot. This is us.

It is wisdom that knows victory in a swung sword and not only a won war.

(Never be too harsh on anyone no matter what you think you know, especially those that seem to have it all going well. We are all at war and most of the wars are not seen, be kind.)

nashe chokureva