THE HANDS THAT RAISED ME
I watched my mother count money
as though every note had a heartbeat.
Bills gathered around her like hungry birds,
and she kept dividing what little she had
into pieces large enough for all of us.
She worked while the world slept,
carried burdens she never placed on our shoulders,
and smiled with a tiredness
I was too young to understand
but old enough to remember.
There was a particular pain in watching her struggle,
loving someone whose hands were always busy
building a life that kept collapsing beneath its cost.
I wanted to help,
but childhood had empty pockets.
Sometimes I watched her come home
and wondered how much exhaustion
a person’s body could hide behind a smile.
She rarely called her sacrifices sacrifices.
She simply called them life.
I learned early that love can be expensive,
not because it asks for money,
but because it asks people to give pieces of themselves
they may never get back.
My mother gave many of hers.
So her sacrifices became seeds beneath my skin.
Every dream I carry remembers her name.
I want to build a life where the people I love
do not have to choose between survival and peace,
where her labour finally has somewhere to rest.
A STRANGER IN CALABAR
I left home carrying clothes, expectations,
and a heart that had never learned
how heavy distance could feel.
Calabar welcomed me with unfamiliar sounds,
unfamiliar meals, unfamiliar streets.
Even the language around me
seemed to move at a different rhythm.
I smiled when I could, stayed quiet when I couldn’t,
and secretly measured every new place
against the warmth of home.
There were days I felt like a visitor
inside a life I was supposed to be living.
Everything looked normal to everyone else,
yet even the smallest difference
could make me ache for familiarity.
Some nights, homesickness sat beside me,
a ghost with my mother’s voice.
I missed the ordinary things,
the streets I thought I knew too well,
the comfort I had never learned to appreciate.
But discomfort became a teacher
I did not know I had enrolled for.
It taught me that belonging
is sometimes something you build slowly,
brick by unfamiliar brick.
Yet somewhere inside that discomfort,
I began becoming someone new.
Calabar taught me that growing sometimes feels
like being uprooted before you learn
how to bloom in another soil.
About the poet:
Olatinwo Yushau is a compassionate, deeply intuitive poet, performer, and author whose creative practice centers on survival, resilience, and the human evolution through adversity. He is the author of the poetry collection Broken Roads Still Lead Forward, a profound literary study mapping how systemic or personal brokenness acts as a vehicle toward personal growth. His written and performance work has been widely featured and reviewed across prominent platforms, including the Tribune Daily Newspaper, Upwrite Magazine, and Poetreel.com.
An evocative stage presence, Olatinwo has performed extensively on poetry stages and literary festivals throughout London and Bristol. Backed by an MSc in Project Management and an extensive professional background in complex mental health care and crisis de-escalation, he uniquely leverages structured organizational logic, profound emotional intelligence, and trauma-info.
