Her Colossal Mistake

One with a Happy Ending

Rabab Maher

What follows is a toned-down tale of a young lady,

Who wedded a man of character so shady;
Although its beginning is not so sweet,
The ending is one with a victorious defeat.

He fought for her to be his wife

To be the one to complete his life
Wedded into his net weaved for her
An existence of nothing but strife

He won her over only to control

To enslave her mind and her soul
To mould her into the ideal wife
To be his lover, and he her dole

He demanded and he expected

To always be loved and respected

Blind to his own actions and words
She was the one who’s “to be perfected”
 A pretty doll to dress up for display
Because of the dowry he had to pay
She was his property forever to stay
An orchestrated character in his play

He rewrote her into a new being

And quietly drained her of her voice
Stripping her gently for the unseeing
Leaving her with nothing and no choice

He wanted to make her dependent on him

Isolating her from the world she used to know
Family and friends were out of the picture
Resentment towards him began to grow

He was a weak and miserly creature

A slap to her face: he priced her health

To not lose money for their brighter future
So she won’t be a dent in his increasing wealth

He even used her illnesses against her

In winter, he left her to live with the cold

She noticed her drama begin to unfold
Of a weary tragedy that needed to be told

He abused her with his venomous words

And emotional and psychological blackmail
 A depressing and damaging chapter in her life
To divulge, for he was, and is, a cautionary tale.

In reviving her voice, she finally says:

My mistake was that I loved you

For wasting my heartbeats on you
For holding my silence for a better us
All the whilst losing myself for you.

My mistake, I thought you could be better

And for trusting you as a man
Betraying my identity in return
So I can cosy into your lifelong plan.

My mistake was I betrayed all my ideals

And did what I loathed most: compromised

I was the only one who had to change
And so I became the sort of person I despised.

My mistake was for having some faith in you

For hoping you could prove me wrong

Instead you reaffirmed what I always believed
And for this I could no longer hold my tongue.

My big mistake was my nuptial to you

That I stayed with you as long as I did
But because of you I rediscovered myself
And for that you were the one I had to rid.

My colossal mistake was meeting you

The shortest story I ever did write

A relation of a surviving woman
Slowly ebbing away for her true knight.

Thanks to him for he paved the way

And proved ‘life is never what it seems’
She knew what she did not want in a man
And for her to find the man of her dreams.

Her first tale was a thrust of pathos

The one to follow is her ‘happily ever after’
However, that is for another poem
Imbued with freedom, love and laughter.

Thursday, 9th May 2013