The Tears of the Wrong Woman
Her tears fall like rain on a borrowed shore,
A quiet deluge, seeping through seams,
Staining the fabric of a life not hers—
His shirt, his collar, his cuffs worn thin,
Drenched in the salt of a love forbidden.
She weeps for him, the man she holds
In the hollow of her chest, a stolen flame,
A fire that warms her, yet chars her soul.
Each drop a confession, a mute apology,
To a heart that beats for what it cannot claim.
She traces the threads with trembling hands,
His scent a tether, his warmth a ghost,
Her love a river with no mouth to run,
Pooling in silence, drowning her slow.
The wrong woman, they call her—
A thief of glances, a beggar of time,
Yet she gives all, her tears the proof,
A currency spent on a debt unpaid,
Soaking his clothes with her breaking truth.
And then the wife, the keeper of vows,
Lifts the sodden cloth from the basket’s weight,
Her fingers brush the damp of grief not hers,
A stain she cannot name, yet feels too well.
She washes the shirts in a rhythm old,
A ritual of care turned bitter with knowing—
The tears of other women weave through the warp,
Heartbreak stitched into the weft of his wear,
A tapestry of sorrow she scrubs in vain,
For the water runs clear, but the pain remains.
The wife’s hands pause, the suds grow still,
She senses the echo of a stranger’s ache,
A chorus of fractures pressed into his skin—
How many tears have kissed these sleeves?
How many hearts have wept their claim?
She wrings the cloth, and with it, her peace,
The laundry a shroud for a marriage worn thin,
Each tear a thread unraveling trust,
A silent war waged in soap and rust.
The wrong woman cries, the wife washes on,
Two souls bound by the man between,
His clothes a battlefield, soaked and cleansed,
A map of longing, a ledger of loss.
One loves in shadow, one in light,
Yet both bleed red beneath the strain—
Tears that fall, and hands that mend,
A cycle of hurt with no clean end.
For love, unshared, is a wound too deep,
And the shirts he wears bear all they weep.
Copyright © Muhereza Rodgers Roger | Year Posted 2025
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