Alexander Jankiewicz

Bus Stop

I’m smoking a cigarette when, for a moment, my heart stops. Her fur coat in the cold brings a certain warmth to my knees as I hold her pretend hand. In my imagination, I already say “I love you” and she replies without a name. She offers a smile. Our journey then begins its separate ways.

the harmony
of a relationship
before it starts

I get off the bus. I’m left standing in the rain. A cold rain washing leftover tears into a sewer. I wait for my next bus with a man claiming to be Jesus and having the best coke available. Even though it’s just the two of us, I become a fly on the wall at a gathering of strangers as he rambles on.

the loneliness
of people meeting
when no one cares

One more stop before my journey’s end. Rain has turned to snowflakes hitting the ground. I think of the individual flakes dying on impact. Another life’s course destined not to survive. Another snowflake gone without a trace. I then notice an old man, who was invisible just a moment ago, as he dries off his dog with a dirty rag.

a beggars hand
reaching out to me
without words

I fold my transfer ticket into an airplane and then crumple it. I can already see her waiting at the corner of my stop. After I get off the bus, we say hello and begin our walk to no place planned. I wonder how she would look in a fur coat as she looks at me and smiles a fake smile. I feel compelled to say her name out loud one last time before we begin discussing the breakup.

a part of me
lost in the looking glass
of her eyes