Read Time:2 Minute, 6 Second
In God’s waiting room, the receptionist hands you
a bowl of sweets, & the TV only plays reruns
of a show you forgot, from a time
you still laughed from your stomach.
In God’s waiting room,
one magazine wears your mother’s crying face,
another looks like a dead friend,
you look around & see you are surrounded
by grief. As they say, faith is not an absence
of suffering. A woman you recognise
walks in and sits across you.
There are blisters on her knees and her eyes
have sunken into their sockets,
taking the depth of questions left unanswered. ++
She croaks an hello & you nod.
The receptionist tells you God will be with you in 5.
Seconds? Hours? Months? Years? You ask
& she laughs but says nothing more.
The woman sitting across you
shares a tired smile.
She hands you a metaphor
of a seed buried & left to die,
tells you to hold it close to your chest & maybe
it will turn to a prayer.
You give her a chorus in return, wishing
you could do more.
In God’s waiting room, the sweets yell prophecies
when you unwrap them. They burn your
tongue & refuse to break when you force
them between your teeth.
Someone joins you, & now you’re three, waiting
for who knows how long.
This one sits beside you. A boy with tattoo sleeves
& piercings under his eyes.
He asks you how long this usually takes
& you shrug. He says he’s here
because he has never slept.
He says his body has been chasing
relief since the second he was born.
You hand him the metaphor
& say nothing else. He stares at it &
presses it on his chest. The woman meets your
eyes with a smile. At God’s waiting room,
it rains when you least expect,
& sometimes, that may be all you need.
The woman sitting across you bursts
into a song you recognise from
your favourite memory.
The boy sings along, & you nod your head,
flipping through magazine pages,
hoping neither of them can see you crumbling
into raindrops.
community of literary enthusiasts.
Ehiorobo Derek is a writer, poet, and spoken word artist. His work has been published in Praxis, Poetry column-NND, Liquid Imaginations, How to Fall in Love anthology, and How to Fall in Love Again, anthology published by INKspiredng. He is also the 2024, co-winner of the Evaristo prize for poetry. You can find him on Instagram @derekimagines, where he writes for a community of literary enthusiasts.
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