Silent screams of abandon

You came into my life~ just before the ink dried... in my husband's condolences register. You knew I was grieving, vulnerable, trying to hold my children’s lives together with threads. You listened to my story— the doubled rent, the school fees... I wouldn’t be able to pay— and you acted like you cared. You said our pain was your pain, that you couldn’t bear to see us suffer. But now I see you for what you are: a predator behind a veil of sympathy. You didn’t come to help; you came with lies, with a hollow promise of a better life abroad. And what you gave me instead was sorrow, ignominy, a stain on my name I’ll never be able to clean. You used my trust, my desperation~ as tools for your own gain— then walked away clean, leaving me with the wreckage. You abandoned me. You ruined me. At Heathrow— when they asked about the contents of the bag, I turned to find you, but there was only faint smoke in the wind. You had melted into the crowd, vanishing with my hopes, my dreams. My children, left behind— my flowers, wilted. My sorrow screamed in silence as I lay forsaken behind bars.. for eight long years— a jail sentence for my innocence.