(For Mothers with ❤️)
A load I carried for nine long months,
Heavy beneath my ribs, heavy beneath my pulse.
A secret swelling inside my bones,
Alive, restless, yet unknown.
It pressed against my fragile sleep,
Turned in the dark where silence weeps.
I felt its hunger, felt its cry,
Felt it stretch where fears would lie.
It fed on my blood, drank from my veins,
Wrote its story through my pains.
My back bent low, my ankles swelled,
My breath grew thin where hope once dwelled.
People smiled and touched my skin,
Asking what treasure grew within.
Was it joy wrapped soft and small
Or a storm waiting to fall.
I loved what I had never seen.
I feared what I had never seen.
I sang to a shadow.
I prayed to a mystery.
Nine months of carrying a question.
Nine months of loving a secret.
Nine months of surrendering control
To something that would not reveal its face.
I bore the weight with trembling grace,
Kissed the curve of my own unknown fate.
So close to my heartbeat it lived,
Yet not once was I given the mercy
To know what I held inside.
A load I carried.
A life I nurtured.
A truth I was denied.
And still I carried it.
© Quotefied
Ifedolapo Ogunniyi 