Written by: Admin_SheEvo
Mama feared the river for what it took; I loved it for what it carried away.
The river knows my name. It has whispered it since I was a child, its voice curling through the reeds, dancing over the rocks, and sinking into the depths where secrets sleep. The current has seen me grow, mirrored my tears, and carried away the echoes of my mother’s sighs.
Mama never liked the river. She said it swallowed dreams. She said it reminded her of things she wanted to forget. But I loved it—how it moved, refused to be trapped, and could be gentle and fierce all at once. I wanted to be like that. But I was never the river.
I was the stillness before the storm, the quiet weight of unshed tears, the emptiness left by things unspoken. I carried Mama’s scars like a birthright and felt Papa’s absence like a ghost at my shoulder. I spent years trying to understand what it meant to be whole when parts of you were missing when memories of love came wrapped in sorrow.
Tonight, the river reflects the setting sun, a golden wound stretched across its surface. The wind is thick with the scent of rain. I stand at the edge, toes sinking into the damp earth, and listen. There are whispers in the water—whispers of the past. I close my eyes and let them come.
The first time I heard Mama cry, I was seven. It was deep in the night, and the house was wrapped in darkness, the kind that seeped into your bones, heavy and full of secrets. I had woken up to the sound of the wind rattling our tin roof, but it wasn’t the storm outside that unsettled me—it was the storm inside.
Her sobs were as if she was trying to hold them back, trying to swallow them whole. But pain has a way of finding cracks to slip through. I crept to her door, my tiny fingers grazing the wood, unsure whether to knock or turn back. “Go back to bed, child.” Her voice was hoarse, thick with the weight of things she never said. I obeyed, but sleep never found me again that night.
Years later, I would come to understand what those tears meant. I would see the faded bruises on her skin, which she tried to hide beneath long sleeves and quiet smiles. I would piece together the truth in hushed conversations between the women in the village, their voices laced with pity and anger. “That man was never good for her.” ,”He left her broken before he left for good.” Absent Papa. The man whose name I carried but whose presence I never felt. A ghost who lived in the spaces between my mother’s sorrow and my longing.
I used to imagine him as a hero, a traveler who had been called on some grand adventure, someone who would return one day, eyes full of stories and arms ready to hold me. But as I grew older, the illusion faded, replaced by the reality of his absence. And Mama never spoke of him, not directly—just warnings wrapped in bitter wisdom.
“Don’t go looking for ghosts, my child. You’ll only find emptiness.” But some ghosts never needed to be found. They lived inside you, shaping the way you loved, the way you feared, the way you learned to endure. The river was the only place I could breathe. When the weight of the house became too much, when Mama’s silence pressed too heavy on my chest, I would come here. I would sit on the rocks, legs dangling over the water, and let the wind tangle its fingers in my hair.
The river did not ask me to be strong. It did not demand explanations. It simply existed, moving forward, always forward. I envied that. I wanted to move forward, too, to leave behind the scars I had inherited, the unanswered questions, and the ache of never quite belonging to anyone. But moving on is never as easy as the river makes it seem. Because scars do not fade as you wish them to.
The first time I ran away, I was thirteen. It wasn’t a planned escape—just a sudden, desperate need to disappear. Mama had been distant that week, her face drawn tight, her eyes clouded with something I couldn’t name. I had tried to help, to ease the burden, but my efforts were met with a tired sigh and a weary glance. “You’re just a child,” she had whispered. But I wasn’t. Not really. Not any more. So I left.
I followed the river, tracing its winding path into the unknown. The forest swallowed me, its shadows stretching long in the fading light. I walked until my legs ached, until the trees blurred together, and I could no longer hear the voices of the village. It was the first time I truly felt alone.
The darkness was different here—not the familiar, suffocating kind of home, but something wilder, something ancient. The wind carried whispers, the rustling leaves forming words I could not understand. I sat beneath a tree, wrapping my arms around my knees, and listened. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called. The river murmured secrets I was not yet ready to hear. And then—I cried.
I cried for the things I did not say, for the love I had not felt, for the weight of a fatherless childhood and a mother who could not let go of her pain long enough to see me. By the time the first light of dawn stretched across the sky, I had made a decision. I would not be like Mama. I would not let pain define me. I would not let loss anchor me in place. I would be the river. Moving forward, always forward. I returned home that morning barefoot and covered in dirt.
Mama was waiting at the door, her face unreadable. She did not ask where I had been and did not scold or punish me. Instead, she opened her arms. And for the first time in years, I allowed to be held. She smelled of wood smoke and rain, of something both familiar and distant. “I thought I lost you,” she whispered into my hair.
I wanted to tell her that she had lost me a long time ago, that I had been slipping away for years. But instead, I just closed my eyes and let the moment be enough. Because one day, I would leave for real. Not out of anger or sorrow, but because I had to. There was a world beyond this river, Mama’s sadness, and the echoes of an absent father. One day, I would find it. But for now, I stayed. For now, the river still knew my name. And I wasn’t ready to let it forget.
