"One Night in February"

It was a cold February night,

the kind of cold that presses on windows
and listens.

We had finished dinner
and were playing in the next room —
a room filled
with his laughing voice.

Then I heard a sound,
where laughter
turned into crying.

I walked toward him.
The only light on his face
was red paint.

For a moment
I did not believe what I saw.
My mind refused it.
My body knew first.

I lifted him into my lap — he was in pain.
My hands trembled.
My breath disappeared.

I ran. I opened the door —
and the world went white.
I tried to wash his face,
but I couldn't.

My mouth stayed shut.
They were blaming me.
But how could a mother

ever hurt her child?

They took him to the hospital.
His crying followed me,
echoing inside my skull.

I walked barefoot,
without feeling the ground.
I waited in a night
that refused to end.

He came back…
but something else
came back with him.

A scar on his face.

And a deeper one inside me —
a wound that never closed,
a hollow that still whispers
in the dark.

— Sobiya Amin