I'M INTO A MOTHER

I vowed never to love a woman older than me,
Even my friends, my colleagues, they knew this truth.
Yet I found myself choking on that promise,
When I saw her, smiling, talking to her son—
A smile so full of love,
A mother, a goddess in her care.
And in that moment, I thought,
"I want her. I want that love,
That smile,
To be the mother of my children."

But she’s married,
And each night, I battle cruel thoughts—
Wishing her husband gone,
Praying for a fate that never comes.
I hate this longing, this bitter truth:
I met her too late.
I wish we’d met before.

My dreams are of a family—her and me—
She once whispered her weariness,
Tired of work, but needing more.
In my dreams, I tell her,
“You don’t have to work.
Quit if you wish,
I’ll provide for you, for our son.”
But it’s only a dream.

We played tennis once,
She was graceful, skilled—
And with every swing, every glance,
I fell deeper.
She became the one I could never have.
No one knows this,
Not even my closest friends,
That I’ve fallen for someone else’s wife.

I tried to move on,
But every face fades,
While hers remains.
I’m addicted to a love
I’ve never tasted,
To a woman I can never call mine.

Nadila J. I.