Mary Bulus Arin
Poet · Plateau state · Nigeria
A storyteller at heart, a poet by expression.
A writing journey
I started writing at the age of eleven. At that time, most of what I wrote may not have made much sense, but writing gave me a sense of peace and calmness. It became a way for me to express thoughts and feelings that I sometimes found difficult to put into words.
At thirteen, I wrote a piece about myself and some of the struggles I experienced as a teenager. Although I have not published that piece, writing it became an important moment in my journey. It strengthened my interest in poetry, spoken-word poetry, and eventually novel writing.
Over the years, writing became a significant part of how I expressed myself. I recently wrote a piece about the loss of my father, which was another personal experience that found its way into my writing.
There was also a period when I stopped writing. However, with time, I realized how much I missed it. Writing had become a part of me, and returning to it felt natural. Recently, I decided to begin writing again, not only as a personal form of expression but also by challenging myself to participate in writing competitions.
My journey as a writer and poet is still developing. I am learning, experimenting with different forms of writing, and allowing my experiences, observations, and imagination to shape my work. For me, writing has always been more than putting words on a page; it has been a way of expressing, reflecting, and creating.
Published writing
LITTLE FRAGILE TREASURE
They say,
“Don’t let the world see your ugliness.”
So I hid—
my pain beneath smiles,
my burdens beneath beauty,
my weariness beneath polished words
that made me seem whole
when inside, I was barely holding on.
But perhaps
flawed and fragile things
aren’t always ugly.
Yes,they carry stories
too beautiful to bury,
stories written in places
where only God could see.
For He delights in choosing
the fragile
to reveal His strength,
the broken
to display His grace,
the wounded
to become vessels of healing,
and the forgotten
to remind the world
that they still have a place.
So though I am pressed,
I will not break.
Though I am shaken,
I will not shake
from the hands that hold me.
Though life leaves scars upon my skin,
I know the One who sees within.
I am a little fragile treasure,
carefully kept,
lovingly measured,
held by the Master Curator
whose hands don't discard
what the world calls flawed.
He sees the cracks
and calls them places
where His light can enter.
He sees the scars
and turns them into stars,
each wound becoming proof
that I survived the dark.
So if I seem fragile,
look again.
For fragility is not weakness.
It is not defeat.
It is not the end
of a story incomplete.
Sometimes,
the most beautiful things
are the ones that have been broken,
because through every crack
the light finds a way back.
And maybe that is why
I was never meant
to hide my scars.
Maybe they are not stains
but stains turned into stories,
not signs of shame
but reminders of grace,
not evidence that I am ruined
but proof that I have been rescued.
So let me be fragile.
Let me be human.
Let me be a little undone.
Because in the hands
of the Master Curator,
even broken pieces
can become a masterpiece.
And if you look closely,
you may discover
that the things I once called flaws
were the very places
where God chose to show
His greatest glory.
For I am not ugly
because I am fragile.
I am a little fragile treasure—
held, healed,
and carefully woven
by the One
who makes beauty
out of broken things.
Psalms for a Wounded Heart
I wander about in this new life of grief,
Searching for answers, but finding no relief.
I wake to a morning I never asked for,
A life that looks familiar, but feels like a foreign shore.
They tell me that time will teach me to heal,
But time has a strange way of hiding what I feel.
The sun still rises, the evening still falls,
But there is an echo where his laughter once called.
My days seem blank, my nights seem long,
I smile with the crowd, though inside something's wrong.
The hours drag slowly, refusing to fly,
And sometimes I wonder what happened to “why?”
Because how do you explain an empty chair?
How do you explain that someone isn't there?
How do you tell your heart, “He's gone,”
When yesterday, his voice was still carrying on?
He was sometimes annoying—
Yes, I said it, don't judge me.
The kind of annoying that somehow made life funny.
We talked about life, we debated our views,
Sometimes we disagreed, but neither of us would lose.
I called him my learned colleague,
And somehow, he wore the title with pride.
We could argue about life for the longest time,
Then laugh like the argument never crossed the line.
He was more than my father.
He was home in human form.
The familiar voice in the middle of the storm.
The person I could call when I had something to say,
The one who made ordinary moments feel less ordinary each day.
And now I have stories
I cannot tell him anymore.
Thoughts that gather at the edge of my tongue,
Names of places, jokes, little things unsung.
Sometimes I still reach for the phone in my mind,
Then reality reminds me that his number won't answer this time.
And that is where grief becomes cruel—
Not in the goodbye alone,
But in all the little hellos
That will never reach home.
I remember Sunday.
I remember Monday.
I remember the accident,
And the world changing in ways
I never thought a world could change.
There are moments my mind replays
Like a film that refuses to end.
I wish I could pause it.
Rewind it.
Change something.
Anything.
But grief does not negotiate.
It simply enters the room,
Sits beside you,
And asks you to remember.
So I remember.
I remember the man behind the title.
The father behind the name.
The laughter behind the seriousness.
The love behind the little arguments.
And perhaps that is why today hurts—
Because love did not leave when he did.
It stayed.
It stayed in the photographs.
It stayed in the stories.
It stayed in the sound of his name.
It stayed in the habits I learned from him,
And in the pieces of him I carry without even trying.
But while I am learning how to grieve him,
I am also watching my mother grieve.
And that pain has another name.
I see her trying.
Trying to smile.
Trying to stand.
Trying to be there for me
While something inside her is breaking apart.
And I wish I could give her everything.
Money to soften the weight.
Strength to steady her heart.
Words to make the silence less loud.
Faith to hold her when the nights become too proud.
I wish I could say,
“Mummy, don't worry, I've got this.”
But sometimes I don't have it.
Sometimes I'm just a daughter
Trying to understand how to live
In a house where the shape of someone missing
Can be felt everywhere.
So I sit with her.
And maybe that is enough.
Maybe love is not always fixing.
Maybe sometimes love is staying.
Maybe it is holding someone's hand
When there are no words worth saying.
And when I cannot find the words,
I return to the Psalms.
With Psalms as my lullaby
And headaches as my alarm,
I search through ancient words
For something strong enough to calm.
I pray with tears.
I pray with silence.
I pray when my faith feels bright
And I pray when it feels like a flickering light.
Some days, I open my Bible
And cannot read a single line.
The words are there,
But my heart is somewhere else entirely.
Still, I come back.
Because perhaps faith is not always
Feeling God's presence.
Perhaps sometimes faith is simply
Refusing to leave His presence
When you cannot feel it.
So here I am.
Grieving.
Growing.
Break