A Sour Vow

… the door slammed so hard the silence flinched.
She threw the 50,000 ssp at my face
like a stone meant to chase a stray dog.
The notes scattered on the floor—
small red turacos nosediving
before they could learn how to fly.

She barked aŋ'il moc
with a tongue sharpened by her mother's bitterness.
Quiet like my late father,
I stood still.
Like the trees on the Nile,
tired of storms but too loyal to fall.

This was the wife I swore death would separate from me.
But death is a lazy visitor.
It never comes early for those who need saving.
This woman!
This woman!
Had branded me the mascot of poor men in these streets.

In my absence, she fed rumors
to every ear that loved salt.
Like her mother, she stretched the word "dollaaaar"
like a belt meant to whip my pride.
It was the only English word they knew and loved.
They both called me a failed husband,
yet her brothers and father were no better.

But like my father, and his father before him,
I knew wël ke diäär acie beer—
I swallowed this sorrow
the way villagers swallow herbs:
not because it tastes good,
but because swallowing bitter things
keeps a dying soul one more day.

I climbed back onto my rickshaw.
It coughed when I turned the key,
as if grieving on my behalf—
the engine too was tired of this marriage.
I drove down the street
and parked just at about the right bar
Soft music leaked through the door,
a song drunk enough to fall into my arms.

As I put my rickshaw to sleep,
a woman smiled at me—
she always does.
Amuor.
The wife the gods drafted for me,
but life shuffled her to the streets.
Peace sometimes comes in Guinness bottles,
sometimes through hookah pipes,
and sometimes it walks in the shape and aura of Amuor—
a gentle riot curved like a prize,
a prize the streets hid from men like me.

She is fluent in comfort,
a master of styles grief doesn't understand.
It's 2 a.m. already.
Our livers sing hymns of curses for us,
but our spirits are too heavy to notice.
Sometimes we don't choose a path.
Life points to it
and hands you no map—
only a night, a woman, a sore throat, and a heavy quiet.

My body gives in as Amuor coquettishly pushes me into the backroom.
The drinks blur as we connect from end to end.
Her body and night stories invite sleep.
I needed sleep because morning trades in movement,
and rickshaws must rise early.

Somewhere across the city,
my lovely wife slept on our matrimonial bed—
lonely.
Somehow she believes money could hold her tighter than I ever did.
And beside me lay Amuor,
drunk but soft,
her heartbeat humming a lullaby my mama used to sing.

Yes, alcohol kills.
But women who only smile at money
have buried more men
than bottles ever will.
& tonight,
I was just another man
trying to breathe in a life
I did not ask for.