Confession Behind Bars

I am telling this story from a cold prison cell, where nights are long and memories refuse to sleep. My name is Veronica, and this is my own truth, the kind that burns the tongue but must be spoken. I was once a housemaid in a fine home, a place with shining tiles, heavy curtains, and a happiness I mistook for something I deserved.

I came to the city with nothing but hope and a small bag of clothes. When Mr. and Mrs. Adewale employed me, I thought God had finally remembered my name. Madam was kind in a quiet way. She spoke softly, paid my wages on time, and never insulted me. Sir was different always smiling, always noticing. The first day he thanked me for cooking well, my heart jumped. I told myself it was just gratitude. I lied to myself many times after that.

Sir was handsome, educated, and carried himself like a king. Whenever Madam traveled or slept early, he would ask me to bring him water, or help arrange files in his study. He never touched me, not at first. But his eyes lingered, and his voice softened when he called my name. In my foolish heart, I began to believe I mattered to him. I started comparing myself to Madam her quiet nature, her busy work life, her tired smiles. I told myself I was younger, more attentive, more alive.

Jealousy crept in like a thief. I hated how Madam laughed with him, how she rested her head on his shoulder, how she owned what I could only imagine. When Sir once said, “You are a good girl, Veronica,” I carried those words like a promise. I convinced myself that if Madam were gone, he would finally see me. Love, or what I thought was love, twisted my thinking until right and wrong lost their meaning.

The plan did not come in one day. It grew slowly, fed by envy and silence. I started putting extra pepper in Madam’s food, hoping it would upset her stomach. When that failed, darker thoughts came. I found rat poison in the store one afternoon and held it in my hands, shaking. That night, as I mixed it into her tea, my heart beat so loudly I thought the walls could hear me.

Madam drank the tea and collapsed minutes later. The scream that followed still rings in my ears. Neighbors rushed in, Sir shouting her name, blood on his hands as he tried to save her. She survived but barely. The doctors said if she had taken one more sip, she would have died. I was arrested before dawn. Sir did not look at me when they took me away. In that moment, I realized I had never meant anything to him at all.

Prison strips you of illusions. In this place, there is no fine house, no soft words, no dreams. Only iron bars and time too much time. I replay everything in my head: Madam’s kindness, Sir’s empty smiles, my own wicked heart. I see now that what I called love was desperation, and what I called courage was cruelty.

I betrayed a woman who never harmed me, and nearly destroyed a family because I wanted a life that was never mine to take. Sir visits his wife now, holding her hand, while I count days behind locked doors. No one waits for me. No one writes my name with affection.

If there is any lesson in my story, it is this: desire without wisdom is a poison more deadly than anything I mixed into that cup. I sit here, paying for a moment of madness, wishing I could turn back time and choose differently. Every night I whisper the same regret into the darkness, knowing it is too late now.
had I know.....