She sits silently, distant
with her eyes fixed on the street
and her toes tightly clinched. She sits
pensively, gazing
out the window at passing cars, hoping,
a little but not too much, for the night bus
to appear round the corner. She sits
patiently, and offers no reply to day-old bread
and cold tea, she’s unfamiliar
with such luxuries. She holds her breath
at the sound of backfiring exhaust pipes –
turning her insides into water but on the outside
she is cold stone. She sits silently,
day in and night out, her sleep is biphasic,
first the ears, then it’s the turn of the eyes. She
waits for the day her parents’ luggage
is unload from the trunk of a car, or lugged off
the bus, the day her new home
starts feeling a little bit more like home.
D.P. Landells is an aspiring poet and teacher who observes the world and writes about it.