I watched you growing

Wedding night was hit for you and i

Every day like the first

Like love at first sight

We’d seat apart in the same room staring in each other’s eyes

I could imagine what you would see in mine

Yes, in yours I found a haven

From the flawed skin of perfect beauty a place I called home

Of heights of love yet to be reached

I watched us grow

As days became multiples of hours

That turned to weeks

And months upon months becoming years upon years

Till you became full time wife and mother

Of children that had changed your body type

The curves that my hands could trace now healed like wounds never to surface

And silk of skin now lined with wrinkles that no correction could matte

I watched you grow

You never spoke many words

Asking how your day was

I could see by the way you wiped every window perfectly clean

Asking how your day went

I could see from the many flavours and aroma that the egusi soup reproduced

I watched you grow

The days of your lives that you had to leave the job of dream

And took leave upon leave

Till you had to finally leave

Because junior fell ill

And needed you as a mother those days and nights

Even though love is not exactly how it used to be

More and more everyday like the first

Like love at first sight staring at each other in the eyes

I could imagine what you’d see in mine

Yes in yours, I saw one who had sacrificed all for another man’s joy

Of decisions, you made your personal opinions

To leave

To cleave

 What if you’ve never fallen for my lines

left your life and become a part of mine

Lose the women you were meant to be

Become a mother a wife

Everything else for another man’s pride

Would I have had the chance to show you I cared?

What if in my chase, I never caught your gaze

Would I be man enough to stare into those eyes

Sometimes at night to call you mine

I am still watching us grow

As your silence speaks louder than every song I’ve ever heard

And I hope someday we will have a communion of the minds

Then I would know what you really think of me

If maybe my I LOVE YOUS still meant the same

If being a father made me a better man

So we should continue to live

Trusting ourselves to cleave

Even when routine cuts us clean

We will never leave

We will forever be

And when silence breaks us still

We would still watch ourselves grow

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