Written by: Admin_SheEvo
Tic tock tic tock…
The shadow of my ghosts looks up at me.
I see my fears and bruises mirrored in its eyes.
It warns me that I am in for a long ride.
That I am not ready to face my latest agonising past.
I am trembling with fear as I crumble before it.
All my flaws and insecurities are embedded in a body so tiny.
With eyes so innocent –
I watch with fear as it twists its lips in what looks like a smile.
It is that smile, that smile of mockery.
I could swear he wore the same smile before.
Mother has given it a name;
Gabriella!
She tells me it is just an offspring.
One that the Universe and so-called heavens brought to Earth.
To me, it is nothing but a sin.
A remembrance of my shame, a mirror of my disdain.
Gabriella huh?
A name so fancy, but it makes me so antsy.
Gabriella looks deep into my eyes like she could read my soul.
Like she sees the hatred I have for her creeping through my pores.
But how can I help it?
Just one look at her makes my hair stand on end in fear and disgust.
Gabriella,
My source of anger and depression.
Ella,
The never-healing, constantly rotting wound.
Gabriella,
A name I loathe but listen to every day like a nursery rhyme.
Imagine the torture I endure when Mama tells me, “she looks just like your dad…”
How can I face her and say,
He touched me in a way he was not supposed to.
How can I tell her he gagged me and pleasured himself right in in front of my eyes;
While I let out desperate, muffled cries of shock and terror?
How can I relay the memory of his crooked grin as he violently shook my body with harsh thrusts,
While I pleaded and cried,
“Father, please don’t…”
Can I confess that the reason behind my nightmares,
My tantrums and trances were my father’s?
And, of course, Gabriella. Good old Ella…
“Our religion does not allow us to murder.”
The dangerous seal that put an end to my life…
Now I am stuck with the consequence of an action that was forced on me.
A reminder that is an undignified failure.
Gabriella.
Would it help if she looked less like the wolf that devoured my innocence?
Well, I don’t think so… she would still be the evidence of what was robbed from me…
Society does not make this any better… Does it?
They judge me for being a terrible mother…
MOTHER- I spit out the words as they cut at my heart like a double-edged sword.
I did not ask for this.
But how does anyone expect me to be what I did not intend?
A good parent… The best mother…
Huh Gabriella?
© Nambaziira Leticia
