Michael Akuchie
Farewell At The Bus Terminal
We arrive soaked with June’s torrential downpour. Monday morning plaits into a queue of bodies, each engaged with the business of waiting. The air-conditioning tears off the warmth I go close to releasing; the winds here are fierce. I had sat in silence during the drive up here, put myself where he would not reach in time. To such an extent, I swallowed whole what I meant to utter & hid behind the dull roar of the car engine. Here we still emulate that season of silence. He voyages through strange seas of thought, yearns for me as one to hold with conversation. I clutch my bag, the vessel of my own path. The one that shoots Midwest, the furthest place away from the smoke in his temper. I see in his eyes innocence splashed across, milk-white, the way he indulges his life with the planning of my own. Like how word of a new decision gets blown in through the doorway of my hearing. Before departure from his gaze, I soften up the atmosphere with a smile that is rain in a time of famine. I am a tributary begging to run into my father’s arms. I convert the last of his words as an anchorhold for days that saunter in as turbulent. May loneliness be announced long after I have buried myself in deafness.
|
|
