The townie bus smells like cigarette smoke.
Worry lines and haggard faces.
I am ashamed to admit I prefer the student buses.
My father tells me he is nostalgic for the smell,
his mother, smoke whispering from her mouth.
I am ashamed to admit I flinch at the memory of her sunken cheeks
begging him for money to buy more.
The man at the bus stop smells of cigarettes and chorizo. His brown, beaten jacket looks like my father’s. My coat is clean, a new backpack on my shoulders.
He does not look at me.
Kestrel Jacobs is a university student, activist, and writer whose work primarily explores the embodiment of disability and queerness. They live in rural upstate New York with their two cats.
If you would like to be part of the Rural Fiction Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like contemporary dark fiction and poetry, you may also want to check out The Chamber Magazine.
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