I cry in Yoruba, but I pray in the name of the Universe…
My tears, rivers flowing from ancestors’ wounds,
carrying echoes of songs once whispered to the moon.
Each sob a syllable, a language of sorrow,
woven with the wisdom of those before me.

I cry in Yoruba, where grief knows the drum’s embrace,
where the earth hums lullabies for broken souls,
where the wind carries whispers of lost tomorrows,
and the rain baptizes me in memory’s call.

But I pray in the name of the Universe,
where light folds into the hollows of my longing,
where the stars scatter my wishes like seeds of dawn,
where the infinite listens, boundless and vast,
and hope is not a language, but a song.

Between my cries and my prayers, I stand—
a child of sorrow, a seeker of grace,
held by the past, lifted by the eternal,
speaking both pain and possibility in one breath.

©️ Beatriz Esmer