By Toyin Falola

 

Strangers do not forge the bitterest knife.
It sleeps
inside the cloth
of a familiar shoulder.

Ẹni tí mo pè ní ọ̀rẹ́,
Ní ó kó iná sí ilé mi.
(The one I called a friend.
brings fire into my house.)

Who fears the leopard?
Yet embraces the hyena?
Who locks the gate
Yet leaves the heart unguarded?

The iroko tree does not tremble.
because of the storm;
it trembles
when the vine it nurtured
tightens around its neck.

Betrayal,
You are the smile
That sharpens its teeth behind the lips.

The elders whispered long ago:

“Kì í ṣe gbogbo ẹni tí ń rẹ́rìn-ín sí ọ
ni ń fẹ́ kí ìrìnàjò rẹ pé.”
(Not everyone who smiles at you
wishes your journey to be fulfilled.)

I poured water
into your thirsty hands.
You returned
with sand for my well.

I broke the kolanut
and shared destiny.
You counted
the pieces of my fortune
before counting
the beats of my heart.

Even the forest
could not distinguish
between friendship
and camouflage.

When asked for the difference

The tortoise nodded.
The squirrel applauded.

No clear answer

Èṣù, keeper of the crossroads,
I know you know
which footprints came with blessings
and which came carrying poison.

Olodumare, witness of hidden intentions,
With your limitless power

You do not mistake
a smiling serpent
for a harmless rope.

God

Why not tell me?

The river does not announce
The crocodile beneath its laughter.

The masquerade dances
before the marketplace,
but only the initiated know
whose tears
hide beneath the costume.

My mother’s voice returns.
Like evening bells

Whispering:

“Àṣọ tí a fi bo ẹlẹ́tàn,
afẹ́fẹ́ ni yóò tú ú.”
(The cloth that hides the deceiver
will the wind lift one day.)

Do not sell tomorrow.
For today’s applause.

Do not trade trust
For a handful of naira
Money already cursed
By our angry ancestors.

What harvest
does the farmer expect
who burns
his own yam barn?

The vulture circles
not because the earth is weak,
but because someone
has whispered
where the wounded lie.

Yet hear this:

The palm tree
does not stop bearing fruit
because monkeys
steal the first harvest.

The moon
does not refuse
to shine
because thieves
travel beneath its light.

My heart
will not become
a marketplace
where bitterness
trades forever.

The ancestors told us:

“Bí ènìyàn bá tan ọ jẹ,
má ṣe jẹ́ kí ó tún tan ọ ní ìwà.”
(If someone betrays you,
do not let the betrayal
change your character.)

For character—
ìwà—
is wealth
that survives robbery.

The betrayer
may inherit
the feast,
but never
the blessing.

Ashes
cannot wear
the fragrance
of incense.

The liar
may borrow
the eagle’s feathers,
but the sky
knows
the weight
of every wing.

And when dawn
returns to the compound,
Truth—
slow-footed,
dust-covered,
unyielding—
will enter
through the same gate
where deceit
once danced.

The talking drum
will remember.

The earth
will remember.

The ancestors
will remember.

In the words of my ancestors:

“Ilẹ̀ ò gbà ẹ̀jẹ̀ aláìṣẹ̀ gbé; ọjọ́ kan, òtítọ́ á yọ.”
The earth never forever conceals the blood of the innocent; one day, truth shall emerge.

So let the betrayer celebrate
beneath borrowed shade.

The iroko
still stands.

The sun
still rises.

And Olódùmarè—
whose eyes
never sleep—
writes
the final verse
that no mortal
can erase.

If you have not been betrayed, you are yet to acquire the valuable lessons of life, the great moments that will reshape your entire life. Alas! It is not your enemies who will betray you. They already hate you and cannot disappoint you. It is the people closest to you. And I am not talking about politicians, as betrayal is part of their own protocol and second nature. Politicians climb the ladder of power via calculations and shifting strategies. I am talking about betrayal in interpersonal relationships—husbands and wives, friends, church members, business partners, colleagues at work, students and teachers, etc. The insider. The people you trust. Your closest allies. Someone who attaches titles to his mediocre name once told me that you can fight any human being by saying he approached your wife for sex and he stole your money! It was not a joke—he accused seven people of wanting to mess with his wife. He wrapped the lies in betrayal, scheming to bring about the downfall of someone who rescued him at his own moment of shame. People with limited mental capacity tend to believe lies. I know why, but this is not for today.

You can hardly satisfy most human beings. They construct expectations, which then collapse if they are not delivered. Betrayal follows. You work with people with low values and conscience. They must impose their own interpretations on your relationship and stab you. They remain dissatisfied with whatever you do for them. Trust has no meaning in their way of life. Give them money to assist you; they will steal it. They can rape your daughter. They are the ones to first talk and create falsehood out of guilt and to cover up. If they kill you, they must justify the murder. All information you share with them must be twisted.

I am assuming you have the experience of betrayal. If not, you must have heard many stories along the way. Bitterness follows. People plead forgiveness, appealing to your humanity to forget the pain. Even if your friend lured your son for ritual murder, some people would also ask you to forgive. Pain is hard to heal and forget. Do whatever you like, but never give a second chance to any person who has betrayed you. He or she will do it again. And again.

As I gather my thoughts for this piece, I remember the countless narrations, sad and painful tales of individuals who harbor nothing but pain over an experience from one whom they hold in esteem. I imagine the initial shock, the disbelief in fathoming how a loved one, a colleague, a spouse, a parent, could stab one in the back. There is no better way to write on betrayal without a mention of the pain and sorrow it causes. Betrayal rarely announces itself; nothing warns the victim of its eventuality quick enough. There are no warning signs that can be immediately understood.

In most cases, it begins ordinarily. No cause for alarm, just exchange of words, a shared commitment, or a familiar face that makes one suspect nothing until the damage is done. What changes is not the moment itself, but the revelation of what transpired when one is forced to remember.

For every action, there is a point where a shift occurs. It could be a discovery of what the other party thinks or feels about one. It could be a chance discovery of the secret dealings behind that confirms their intentions towards you. Regardless of the form, in that moment, reality shifts and what was once stable crumbles in an instant.

For every victim, betrayal is in sequence. It is usually remembered in chains of events, not standalones. When stability shifts, the mind traces the sequences, reinterpreting moments of caution. Conversations are replayed; every tone and actions are reassessed as uncertainty in a person sets in. Their silence breeds doubts; once comforting kindness feels like a fraud. The mind becomes unsettled. It tries to decode every action based on existing sequences.

Betrayal is particularly disorienting not just because it hurts. If it were about being hurt, humans would have found a way to lock emotions out while dealing with others. Betrayal has such disorienting effects on humans because it affects reasoning. It destabilizes human understanding. It forces a sane, smart person to question decisions they made in good faith. People begin to question their ability to read people, judge intentions, and recognize sincerity. The inquiries stop being about the other person. It shifts from “Why did this happen?” to “How did I not see this coming?”

This question conveys how deeply humans take betrayals. In the real sense, a betrayed person does not easily detach and move on from the experience because betrayal does not remain outside a person. It is internalized. A single experience becomes a yardstick to reshape how individuals see themselves and others. A very trusting person begins to exercise caution and hesitates before accepting others at face value. An open person builds walls and learns to withdraw emotionally. A socially secured person may learn to second-guess their actions.

It is a common feeling for the betrayed to share two versions of reality. One where everything was good and straightforward, and another where caution became a necessity. The discrepancy in identities creates a confusion that is difficult to explain to others. On the outside, the betrayed leads live normally, but internally, they are broken and in bad shape.

Another awful feeling that comes with betrayal is a feeling of quiet humiliation. People feel betrayed not because they did something wrong, but because they experienced a form of humiliation over their vulnerability. They feel they must have been too easy to prey on and may feel exposed in retrospect, even if they did nothing unreasonable. Naturally, to trust is to hand the other party useful information on one’s vulnerability. This feeling often leads to silence when the eventuality happens. Largely, many victims do not speak about betrayal immediately. They remain, battling the quiet emotions as they search for words to translate their emotions into adequate words.

One of the most painful aspects of this experience is the change in how memory functions afterward. The mind does not just have the ability; y to record scenarios; it also can recall past events. Invariably, when betrayal happens, the mind naturally recalls and re-evaluates what transpired repeatedly. Every action is scrutinized. Moments that once felt genuine may now feel staged. Sincere words may feel calculated as the mind tries to make sense of the contradictions.

And yet, amid all this mental reorganization, life is expected to continue externally. Demands are expected to be met, commitment addressed, and responsibilities continue to flow naturally. This reality creates a strange emotional split: the demands of an individual’s day-to-day activities require their presence even while they are at the edge of internal collapse.

Often, post-betrayal experiences push individuals into isolation. To the unsuspecting eye, the victims are physically present but miles away in thought. They wear a mask that makes it difficult for the concerned persons to share in their experience without putting them on the defensive. Thus, betrayed people often carry their cross alone as they believe their feelings cannot be translated easily into conversation with others.

Surprisingly, beneath all of this is a layer that gets overlooked. People seldom consider the potential strength in rebuilding the self. No one considers the intentionality that comes with building self-trust again. In every instance, the betrayed not only lose trust in others, but they also question their self-trust. This is why in every case, the betrayed revisits every decision, doubts every judgement from the past, and reexamines their own intuition. In summary, they begin to ask if they can trust themselves again.

At this point, the individual is closer than they think. The ability to think and retrace one’s steps is a step closer to healing, even if it is not immediately recognized as that. This is because the more the individual reflects, the faster they learn and come to terms with the bitter truth that the betrayal did not occur because trust itself is flawed. It occurs because people are complex and imperfect. One-sided trust in a relationship does not guarantee any outcome. It should be viewed as a risk taken in good faith. And because that risk can be violated, it does not make it meaningless.

Over time, something important happens. The intensity of the emotional noise begins to reduce. The mind no longer replays the same events with urgency. The questions no longer bite as they did before. With time, the experience slowly fades into perspective rather than occupying the entire mental space.

Some people build more walls after betrayal. They become more guarded. Others become more selective. They choose who and how to react to. A few embrace strategic discernment. Above all, the most rewarding approach is to be less spontaneous and trust with intentionality. As we learn to become less spontaneous, it is important to remember that not all betrayal can be restored. Some relationships do not return; some remain permanently altered. And when necessary, one should heal by releasing pent-up emotions. To release is to let the triggers go and live a peaceful life.

For all its worth, betrayal has a way of revealing something about human resilience. It shows how one can rebuild in new forms with caution and more self-protection in choosing what works and what does not. The goal after betrayal is to become refined. A better individual who understands both trust and caution. We should be careful not to allow betrayal to change our perception because a change in perception changes the direction of healing.

There is no doubt that some experiences, in truth, cause disbelief in others. However, we should not disregard the possibilities that time, reflection, and distance also help build self-understanding. And in that understanding, we learn to regain the strength to engage life once more without vulnerabilities.