The Joys Of Motherhood By Adeoluwa Deborah
Postnatal care seems to go hand in hand with the familiar scent of Dettol, the warmth of pap, and the soft puff of dusting powder. But once a child is born, not every mother steps into celebration; some step into waiting rooms, where the air is heavy with exhaustion,…
YOUR GROWN DAUGHTER
The joy of knowing I didn’t lose you—
The solace of knowing it could have been so much worse.
The pain you carried,
The self-hatred that consumed you,
I felt it.
The feeling of helplessness,
hopelessness, and despair
You tried to cover with your jokes,
I felt that so painfully
When I saw you on the
hospital bed in…
My Name Is Magdalyne, And This Is My Story
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…
POEM: African
My name is an African daughter
They took my childhood from me
I became the daughter of Achilles
I’ve been worried
I’ve been hungry
I’ve suffered
I was a kid.
I grew up early,
Like all the unfortunate women of this land
Life is too hard –
Life is cruel, unfortunately cruel
Life is unfair to women of this land
Life…
A Daughter’s Silent Pain: Growing Up in the Shadows of Cultural Expectations
I was 12 when my world crumbled. It happened suddenly, without warning, like a storm that had been gathering silently in the distance. My father married a second wife, and my mother, his partner of so many years, found out about it the same way I did—when my father…
POEM: You Are Not Alone
Here is the thing about the weight of the world…
Sometimes it might feel like the darkness is swallowing you whole.
And you are tangled in a blanket of despair,
Wondering if anyone else feels the same way.
And if there even a sliver of hope left?
Maybe your mind is a constant battlefield…