The Man My Mother Feared Poem by Frankline Shem O.

The Hands That Held Me

His hands are strong, calloused, steady,
Yet something in their weight unsettles me.
I tell myself it is love—
The kind that holds, not harms.
The kind that lingers like a shadow,
But never chokes the light.

My Mother's Eyes

She smiles, but her lips are tight.
A flicker of something unnamed
Passes through her like a ghost.
She watches him, watches us—
Her fingers trembling at the edge of silence.

The Whispered Name

It was a name she never spoke,
A wound she stitched beneath her ribs.
A night swallowed by the earth,
Buried so deep the roots forgot.
Until he said it—my name—
Like something he had once owned.

The Cold Awakening

His hands are strong, calloused, steady,
Yet now they feel like chains.
I trace his scars,
And they lead me to my mother's past.
The weight of his touch,
No longer love—
But fate's cruel echo.

The Unraveling

Did the stars know? Did the wind whisper?
Did my mother see me walk into the arms
Of the man who once broke her?
She does not cry,
But her silence shatters me.

The Ending That Was Written

I do not scream.
I do not run.
I only stand,
As the earth spins on,
Mocking the daughter
Who unknowingly loved
Her mother's nightmare.

A name written in shadows,
A fate sealed before my first breath.