Cosmetic Surgery — Enigmatic Olumide

For how long

How long do we need to wait?

For our heart of stone to become flesh

How long do we need to be in this theater?

With our hearts opened wide for surgery

For too long

But the folks outside look at us and smile

As naïve as they were, they call us blessed

Oh, Look at His beautiful wife and His beautiful kids

Her husband flies first class;

his house is the dream of all girls

I wish they were us, so they could wish for something else

Blasphemers!

Never thanking God for what they have

But only looking at the greener grass on the other side of life!

They never knew

This was a cosmetic surgery

And we hide behind the foundations, pancakes, & mascaraed brows

Though we smile as though all is well

Deep inside we know that these hearts are rotting

And if these doctors do not get us out of this theater

We may just die

Or become a couple without a heart

For how long?

How long do we need to walk down the aisle?

Yet each time we come out we continue to mourn

Not moan

Our heart is a combination of many failed marriages

We have removed the bed and now we sleep on the boxing ring

With our children knocking and crying behind the closed doors

Saying daddy-mummy please open the doors!

But so many times after we’ve opened these doors

Pretending that daddy and mummy were just playing

In the bedroom

We’ve opened the hearts of these little ones

To violence in marriage

Not just in marriage but in their relationships

The boys learns to punch and beat their girlfriends

Because they know that daddies should be stronger

And if a woman does not take the biddings of a man

He beats her

Till the woman knows that a man is the head of the house

And the neck must always turn wherever the head wants to go

But the baby girls are no fools

They begin to learn the ways and the trickeries

Of the many ways to make a man do their biddings

And if a man will not fall for their trickeries

They either kill him

In their hearts, or at night without sex;

or with extra-marital affairs

They may even train the kids to love and trust their mother

At the expense of their father

Because unlike the woman; the man is not always there

And in the future, I doubt if he will ever be

For how long

How long do we need to carry this cosmetic surgery?

Pretending to the outside world

That all is well

When all is hell

Deep within we know our hearts were never right

But then we lie

We are just fine

So we hold hands in public gatherings

At Christmas parties and family meetings

We want men to see us as good

But in our hearts we were never cool

Kissing and hugging may be the movie we show to the world

While the tears we shed still hides under our skin

Our hearts bleed

But friends do not feel the trouble we see

By remaining on this same spot

In ages; not wanting changes

The ears we tell may for once hear us and forget

But our soul may never forgive the pains we inflict on ourselves

not the ones our partners caused

But the ones we dwelt with

And refused to change

Till this marriage

Becomes the rubbles

Left behind

After this matrimonial war ended