LOVE IS NOT ALWAYS TIDY

linesandlyrics.blogspot.com

I grew up in a house

where love did not always

sit at one table.

There were different doors,

different rooms,

different versions

of belonging.

As a child,

I did not know

that a family could carry

so many invisible maps.

I only knew

that some people

seemed to know

where they belonged,

while I was still

learning the shape

of my own name.

There were good days.

There were plenty.

Laughter had its way

of finding us.

Someone would call

from another room,

food would appear,

children would become noisy,

and for a little while

the house forgot

all its complications.

Then came the whispers.

Rumors have a peculiar talent.

They never knock.

They enter through windows,

under doors,

through people

who swear they are only

telling you what they heard.

And misunderstanding

can turn a familiar face

into a stranger

before breakfast.

There were days

I felt singled out.

Not always openly.

Sometimes it was only

a look held too long,

a silence that answered

a question nobody had asked,

a feeling that said,

"You are not quite

where you thought you were."

Then came the day

my father disowned me.

I remember the wound.

But I remember

my mother's face too.

That is the strange thing

about family pain—

you can be hurt

by what happened to you

and still ache more

watching someone you love

hurt because of it.

My mother carried

her own disappointments

and still found strength

to stand.

Perhaps that is where

I first saw resilience.

Not in someone

who had never been broken,

but in someone

who had every reason

to become bitter

and refused the promotion.

My family taught me

that love is not always tidy.

It can share a wall

with disappointment.

It can survive

awkward silences.

It can sit beside pain

without asking pain

to leave first.

I no longer need

my childhood

to have been perfect

to be grateful for it.

The house gave me

some bruises.

It also gave me

a spine.

It taught me

that being misunderstood

is not the same

as being wrong.

And that sometimes

the strongest person

in the room

is the one

who has learned

how to leave the room

without losing herself.

My family did not teach me

how to please everyone.

It taught me

how to stand.

How to hear an opinion

without turning it

into an identity.

How to walk through

being misunderstood

without becoming

a stranger to myself.

I carry all of it now—

the laughter,

the rumors,

the difficult days,

my mother's tears,

my father's absence

and the strength

that grew quietly

between them.

I did not choose

everything that shaped me.

But I have chosen

what I will become

because of it.

---

Author's Bio:

Shakirat Ayodeji Bioku is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and performer whose creative journey is rooted in storytelling, oral tradition, theatre, traditional cultural dance, and spoken word. She began her performance journey creating and delivering custom celebratory eulogies and performing in local theatre.

Her writing draws from lived experiences, exploring themes of family, identity, courage, love, resilience, growth, and becoming. She has performed her poetry on various stages across Nigeria, bringing together the intimacy of poetry with the energy and emotion of live performance.