Declaration by Michael Akuchie

I love lingering
Lingering inside a bus
Hugging the fine facade of faces,
The driver’s face especially.

I love favouring window seats,
Especially the last one to the back.
The very left to the back
The very back where all the air in the bus rush to before exiting,
So I could inhale everyone’s air,
a colouration of my worst fears.

We hit a speed bump,
I crash into a daydream
Long lost lived within the four walls of a university
Where wisdom is worn backwards
The centre of chewed roads carried on a dry river bed.
It begins to pour, with no prior notice
And the air in the bus is shifty, like a politician’s promise,
Penetrating the organised peace from my earphones,
A colouration,
That I almost miss my stop.
The driver’s face is now shifting.
He’s stopped,
No one is shifting in the seats.
He was about to shift his gear when I shifted into the downpour
At first I sprint
Then I slowed strides, and begin to linger,
Crashing into potholes,
Preventing myself from daydreaming again.
I dip my feet into land seized by water, soaked flesh-earth,
Too late, a bus shifted a puddle on me
A hiss precedes a middle finger in reply.

I imagine my body a giant umbrella, but then everything
I own will be consumed, in this downpour: life will eat me up.
It’s the heaven’s turn today, to
lick me thoroughly.
I must stay in sight,
And enjoy the attention.