Cracks
A collection of three poems on the power and tribulations involved with being a woman — from Habiba Malumfashi
Devil Child
When father hailed
His mighty warrior
Mother’s voice whispered
In the silence of night
Words she had heard
Cradled in her mother’s hardened arms
Swaying beneath
The heavy falls of her words
I learned a world
Of rising flames
Hidden behind soft doe eyes
Under mother’s calloused palms
Opened a portal
To a world unseen
I passed through an age
Of feigned submission
To enslaved masters
Saw through mother’s restrained rage
To the embittered core
That kneaded the dough
To be put over the belly
Of another woman’s child
Mother’s hands
That opened a window
Let through the voice
Of thousands rising in clarity
Hushed beneth the demons fervour
Pressed to mother’s swollen middle
Amidst suckling pulls
She spun the tale
Of gramdmamas fight
May her soul rest in peace
She spoke of far off lands
Of gramdmamas freed soul
Of sister’s coming fate
As the sacrificial lamb
On the demons altar
Of my place
Over mother’s slouched back
At the head of the demon’s army.
Cracks
I am holding your pot of glue
there is a crack on the window
of the house you have built for our love to dwell
It let’s in the cold cold air that makes you shiver in my embrace
I am warm
Wrapped up in the shawls of solitude and regret
you drape over me after every round of love making
I burn in your shivering arms
Sleep to taste of red
There is a crack
Running down the walls of this house you have built
Where in our love can dwell away from piercing eyes
It is a gilded sprawling manse
And the insecurity grows over the gold paint
To peek into our room
Where you hold up the walls
With tubes of glue
Blood hiding the tears on your cheeks
There is a crack down the floor of our room
Our bed tethers between two sides
A yawning chasm
Slipping
As I reach for your pot of glue
You sleep
I am not so good at sealing cracks
Only splinters
You sleep
Slip
Into the ether
I am holding your pot of glue
On my side of our bed
In this house
You built
So our love will dwell
Between the cracks
You seal.
Tired
She is tired
Of eyes that trail and linger
Leaving white hot paths
Of curling shame in their wake
She is tired
Of touches
That pull skin taut
Plunging her in an abyss
Of taunting memories
She is tired
That her pleasure still comes
With a dose of shame
That uncertainty clouds every touch
Doubts making skin itch
With every kind word
She is tired
That every question
Leaves her with words
Gathering under leaded tongue
Choked back and swallowed
Leaving behind bitter taste of regret
She is tired
That you still have a hold over her words
Her thoughts, her worth
And self esteem
That the world carries you on a pedestal of gold
Of grandiose claims
While she shivers and rages
In the face of blatant superiority
She is tired
That her pain is inconsequential
In the vast scheme
Of the world’s measure of how pain is to be expressed
She is tired
Of been told
To forgive and forget
She is tired
She is tired
Of living
A life
That in the end
Is not worth much.
Habiba Malumfashi is a writer from Kaduna state, Nigeria. She is a student of Agricultural Economics in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. She is interested in poetry, hausa literature and reviews. Her work has been published in brittle paper and she is currently a staff writer on Ayamba litcast. You can follow her on Twitter @habibamfashi and connect with her on Instagram @Mfashihabiba.
