Those hollow eyes…
Vast and empty as a dried-up well,
Fixed unblinking on the rusted gate,
Staring…
Waiting…
Through the fog of endless days.
Like the last flicker
Of a dying flame,
They glimmer faintly
With hope—still warm, still flickering—
Before the darkness swallows all.
Her frame is a fragile cage of bone,
A living relic wrapped in wrinkled skin,
Where time has carved its story
In folds and hollows.
She is more shadow than substance now,
More silence than sound.
She sits alone on a sagging cot
In the courtyard of her crumbling home,
The wind weaving through her silver hair,
Like memory brushing past.
Her gaze is nailed to the doorway
As if willing it to open—
As if sheer yearning
Could pull him back.
She waits—
And waits—
And waits.
She is a mother.
And she is waiting for her son.
A son who now lives far away,
In another city, another world,
Where glass towers rise
And coins fall like rain.
He sends her money,
Month after month,
To feed the body
He no longer embraces.
And so the food comes.
But not the son.
And the hunger that gnaws inside her
Is not for bread—
It is for a voice,
A touch,
A glimpse,
A moment.
Her womb bore him,
Her arms cradled him,
Her shoulders carried him through fevered nights.
She gave him everything—
Her blood,
Her sleep,
Her youth,
Her laughter.
And now, in return,
He gives her a money order.
Oh, did he never once
Feel the weight of her emptiness?
Did no image of her come drifting
Through his golden days?
Did he forget the lullabies
That softened his nightmares?
The cracked hands that wiped his tears,
The lips that blessed his every step?
She raised him to be a man,
Taught him to walk,
To read,
To dream.
She sewed him courage into shirts,
Knitted prayers into every sleeve.
She stood like a shield
Between him and the world.
And now—
She waits,
And watches,
And remembers.
Nights must have passed
With her eyes wide open,
Listening to silence where his voice once played.
Surely there were nights
When hunger curled beside her like a cold dog,
And she slept with an empty stomach
But a full heart—
Because *he* was eating somewhere.
Years have melted into years.
Seasons have come and gone.
The birds no longer sing his name,
The neighbors no longer ask.
Only the postman comes,
Bringing the envelope
That proves he’s still alive.
Not a letter.
Just money.
Cold, unfeeling money.
And the son believes he’s done his duty—
He’s paid for her meals,
Settled his guilt with currency.
But who will pay for the cracked voice
That no one hears?
For the prayers whispered
To an absent sky?
For the dreams that wilted
Without rain, without reply?
She doesn't want his riches—
She wants his hand in hers,
His head on her lap,
His voice calling her “Ma”
Just once more.
Now the eyes grow dimmer.
The flame grows low.
But still—she watches the gate.
Still, she hopes.
Because hope…
Is a mother’s final breath.
Let the world count wealth in coins—
She counts in moments missed,
In birthdays forgotten,
In calls never made.
She is a mother.
And all she ever wanted
Was not his money—
But **him**.
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