“Ojú tó yà àárín, ń fojú kọ̀rọ̀ ọkàn.” Meaning : “Eyes peeking from the veil, glimpse the hearts story.

As a child, I had long eyelashes, with very soft, hairy edges that went all the way down my eyelobes, connecting to the neck hairline. They often called it "teddy," with huge googly-cute eyes and crystal-clear eyeballs, with thick dark eyebrows.  Often, voices filled the room, yet I felt myself shrinking trapped like a caged sparrow, wings clipped by shyness. They would say I looked Indian, but my answers hid quietly beneath my breath. With time, I folded into myself, tucking away soft dreams, and brave ambitions. My heart brimmed with unspoken things, whole worlds of expressions waiting to be fly . But each time I reach for freedom for my soul , LIFE…… 

However , this became my identity . I had no voice loud enough to echo my side of the story , but my eyes , they pick the overlooked details , and they also speak. 

I woke up that midnight, I had put the kids to bed, and hubby sleeping so peaceful i could tell and went to the living room to my favorite cozy couch I had longed to behold , i mean a much needed privacy , anyway i laid facing the ceiling , then the ambience of that moment became familiar, tranquil it was, and nostalgia flooded me. I remembered who i have always wanted to be, I pondered on my childhood memories. I rested my right elbow on the vertical side of the couch landing my right hand on my forehead that felt , the now , frail edges that used to spark up a dynamite in me as a child, "motherhood" , I whispered , and then I leaned in to God and I was nudged to pray , 10 minutes into praying , courage surged through me . Then i rattled the house for a pencil and started sketching. I didn't get the image of the girl i had in my head , I tried severally till i got bored . My phone was fully charged, and i logged into Pinterest, finally, after a few minutes, i found this picture and thought to recreate it with the graphite pencil . It just fit the image of me i had in my head. I captured the very idea and thought to leave it raw , with a few crooked edges and unblended angles, no perfection. something about God’s presence"‘I told myself"‘. Then i got stuck on the googly eyes that carried the weight of silent battles, the echoes of familiar voices , the stillness of nights too long for sleep , not tears , not screams just a gaze, sharp as broken glass. 

I wore all that strength like a veil, thin but unyielding, and behind it, was the kind of sorrow that doesn't beg for pity, just of validation that I wasn’t crazy. 

The world looked at her , but few truly saw. Yet, one glance into her eyes told of fire and resilience , not the kind that destroys, but the kind that refines gold.

People said she was quiet. They didn’t know that her silence wasn’t empty , it was full , full of the noise she had swallowed to survive.

As the Yoruba say, “Ojú l'ọ̀rọ̀ wa…” The eyes hold the stories. And hers? Hers held chapters only God and the walls could read.

There are wounds the body cannot see , those inflicted not by blade or blow, but by trust twisted, painful revelations, and silence in places you try to fit, song you were never meant to sing , every word foreign on your tongue. The space you occupy feels borrowed, like a jacket two sizes too small . You tread lightly, afraid your footsteps might offend, your truth might echo too loud. They smile, but it never reaches their eyes ; they speak, but never ask you to stay. So you learn to live in the in-between , present, yet peripheral. You memorize their moods, their rules, their unspoken boundaries, hoping that effort might buy acceptance. But it never does. Instead, you become the shadow in all the spaces , the name they always forget to mention, and the one they manipulate, the warmth they withhold without guilt. And in the quiet of it all, you begin to wonder if being unseen is safer than being seen.

These wounds do not scream out in blood or bruises , instead, they settle in the soul like fog quiet but suffocating. They manifest not in cries, but in a smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes, in laughter that ends too soon, in the heaviness of simply being. You begin to retreat from the world, not with dramatics, but with a kind of aching caution touching life only lightly, afraid of being cut again.

When trust is twisted, it is not merely broken it is distorted into something that confuses and shames. The betrayal isn't just about what was done to you; it's about how you learnt to be open , your vulnerability , your belief , were turned into tools of harm. You begin to question your own judgment, haunted by the echo of your own willingness to believe in people who used you as a pawn. The wound whispers, “You should have known better,” "you knew better," even though it was never your fault.

And when love is corrupted, its damage is profound. Love, in its purest form, is supposed to heal. But when it's tainted by manipulation, control, or deceit, it becomes a poison disguised as a promise. What once made you feel safe now makes you flinch or what you never really had becomes the source of anxiety. You begin to associate closeness with danger, affection with conditions, and care with strings attached. Love, once your refuge, becomes your fear.

Then there's the silence , the chilling absence in places that once felt warm. The void where familiar laughter used to live, where shared rituals used to anchor you. It's not just about losing a person; it's about losing a rhythm, a routine, a sense of home. This silence isn’t peaceful; it is echoing and loud, filled with the ghost of memories that used to bring comfort. It wraps around you at night, in quiet rooms, in moments when you're most in need of understanding. Silence becomes a reminder not of solitude, but of abandonment.

And yet, through all of this, you survive. You carry these invisible wounds with grace even when your spirit is limping. The world doesn’t always notice, but you are constantly relearning how to be ,how to speak, to trust, to feel, to love again without fear. Healing from these kinds of pain isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s slow, tender, and deeply personal. It is waking up and choosing not to harden, not to close, not to shut the door forever.

Because even though you were broken in places no one could see, you are still here. And in your quiet rising lies a strength that is fierce and sacred. These wounds may have shaped you, but they do not define you. You are more than what was done to you. You are the courage it takes to keep going, I often told myself. 

She had walked through enough shadows to understand that life is not always light.

 And the story is not over , because God writes beautiful stories , it’s only waiting for the right moment to become a flame, because I ate all the darkness specifically designed to destroy me . Thankfully , the broken spaces let light in.

And there in quiet corners where I was broken , God’s divine light flooded me and fixed me , but the scars of my soul begins to sketch its own silhouette , then it became the form, My SOUL IN SILHOUETTE .......