Something About Goodbye
By Joemario Umana
Friday, 27-10-2023
Of all those who stood behind the microphone tonight, none resembled her. That's where the story unfolded. She wore an oversized white polo, a vintage scarf around her neck, blue baggy trousers, and white sneakers. Her voice, reciting the poem against the sad piano background, was akin to the feeling after rainfall. At the end of her performance were applause, snapped fingers, and "well done" smiles showered upon her. But not me. I couldn't. She reminded me of Andrea, whose farewell was a line on paper, her cold body sealed with a frothing foamy mouth—"a suicide note is just another beautiful poem."
Monday, 30-10-2023
Inside the cafeteria, the armless chair I sat on and the table before me— my MacBook, my journal, my pen, and a two-hundred-naira cup of once-iced zobo, now warm—housed all my frustration. Anyone seeing me there would think the cafeteria's ventilation was poor, as most parts of my blue flowery shirt looked like I just emerged from a baptismal pool and sat out to dry.
The twentieth rejection email of the month on my MacBook screen made me second-guess if writing was my calling. Then came that voice, a voice I remembered from two nights ago, giving me the feeling of post-rain. It was at the Campus Connect Open Mic, and now it was at the cafeteria counter, ordering a plate of fried potato chips, fried egg and coleslaw, and a cup of iced zobo.
If I had believed in fate, I would have counted this as one. My face still on the MacBook screen, I heard the voice in front of me.
"Mind going easy on the MacBook?"
Startled, I replied, "What?"
"Looks like you want to beat the hell out of whatever you're looking at on that screen," she said.
I smiled and consented to her sitting with me.
Seated across from me, she looked like a perfect picture of a model in a Vogue magazine. Again, she asked me what was making my face look like the front of a truck that ran into another's. I told her about my happily-ever-after writing life. She laughed. And that was all to tell that heaven is a caramel-skinned girl with a hearty laugh and a smile enough to make a full moon at night jealous.
I said to her I know she can relate to that. Still smiling, she asked how. I told her I witnessed her performance two nights ago. She asked what I thought about it. I said, “Sad.” And a few minutes later, as if the word had some traffic jam in my throat, I added, “And beautiful.” She smiled and said, "Well, sadness can be beautiful."
Desperately wanting to ask what inspired her, I hesitated. Some things are better left unsaid, and you don't get personal with a stranger. As if to save me from lacking what to say next, her order arrived. After having her meal and about to get up and leave, she asked if she could read some of my works. I told her if she wanted to cry, I could get her number and DM her the link to my published works on WhatsApp. Again, that heart-melting smile as she collected my phone and input her digits. I felt like I just won a lottery.
Sunday, 19-11-2023
".. I melt into her like fura dissolving in searing heat. In here, I think: isn't it foolish to be lonely like a desert and still as water even though you're turning to ash, something the world calls being a man? My eyes turn into the Pacific.
She swears she's never seen a man be so human, not a pretense of what he's meant to be, especially in a brothel. A man, they say, must lead, but here I am, led by a woman. Maybe in this dance of souls, we don't need leaders."
Lying on my bed wearing my shirt, the only thing on her body, she snapped her fingers and said that was beautiful at the end of my recitation. I joined her in bed as I pulled her into my body. Sliding her tongue on my nipple like a snake curling around its prey, she said she couldn't help but notice that all my poems are about boyhood. Jerking to the feeling surging through my body like electricity from what she was doing, in a muffled breath, I said, "Yeah. What about it?"
She said, "Nothing. Just wondering if you believe that men should be weaklings." Lifting her face to mine, I said to her, "Nope. I'm just saying guys are humans, too, and there's nothing wrong with being vulnerable. There's strength in vulnerability."
She smiled. Pushing me away, she jumped out of the bed, unbuttoned my shirt that was on her body, picked up her bra and strapped it across her breast, wore her pants, and slid the chiffon gown down her body. She turned to me, who was only in boxers on the bed, and said she hoped I still remember she'd be leaving town, never to return, a week from now.
Like the first time she told me this, I felt the ache again in my heart, like a saw's teeth biting into my flesh. But I smiled and said yeah. But I guess she saw right through me as she came towards the bed, sitting on it, bent and planted a kiss on my forehead, and said we can still make the most of the time we've got. Again, I smiled and said, "Sure." She said okay as she planted another kiss on my forehead, stood up, and left.
Friday, 1-12-2023
The hall was heavy with different emotions and energies. The audience hummed and snapped their fingers at every line of the poet behind the mic that resonated with them. She was seated next to me, with her head on my shoulder and my arm over her shoulder. Our hearts beat against each other at the same pace. She whispered into my ears, "How about you perform tonight?" I smiled and whispered back to her, "Nope." She pressed on, saying that she'd never seen me behind the microphone, and besides, this could be like my final goodbye memory to her. I couldn't turn her down. I still haven’t made peace with the fact that she was leaving, even though our relationship was a no-strings-attached kind of relationship. After the poet stepped off the mic, an indie female singer was introduced onto the stage.
"But..," I started but couldn't find the words to complete what I wanted to say.
"But?" she enquired.
I said nothing.
After the indie singer got off the mic, I climbed the stage. I told myself if this is the last memory she'll have of us, I want it to be something that will never leave her till the day of her final breath. The truth is, I don't know what I did up there. It didn't matter that I was drowned in an ocean of "aww" and overwhelming smiles that could have brightened up the room if the lights had been turned off. All that mattered at that moment was her, seated there, singled out like a spotlight on a dark stage, my caramel skin poem, as these words of mine sounded distant:
"...I love you."
Writer's Biography
Joemario Umana is a Nigerian creative writer and a performance poet whose poems are on the theme of masculinity. He is an alumnus of The Poetic Collective writing fellowship and the 2023 Sprinng Writing Fellowship. Also a member of The Writers Manger Network (TWMN), a literary and literacy hub in Nigeria. Joemario Umana’s works have appeared and are forthcoming in journals like the anthology publication of NSPP 2022, Brittle Paper, Strange Horizons, Loch Raven Review, The Kalahari Review, Lunaris Review, Ngiga Review, Eboquills, Nantygreens, Poemify, Punocracy, Spillwords, and elsewhere. His works have drawn literary appreciation to themselves. He's the first runner-up of the TWMN Poetry Contest 2023, winner of the Profwic Poetry Challenge 2022, and Miss Oreime Poetry Contest ‘021, among other wins and recognitions. He is currently doing his clinical year in Medical Laboratory Science at the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. He tweets @JoemarioU38615.
