Don’t Call Me Home Now

By Majekodunmi Ebhohon

MOTHER, please,
don’t call me home now.

The game is just starting,
and I have spent my whole life in the tunnel.

I am almost at the field.
I know I am close,
because I can hear it—
the dull, heavy thud of leather on foot,
like a banana tree falling;
and the small, sharp cry of the air
when the ball is finally set free.

I took the wrong path, I know.
The forest tightened its wooden teeth around me.
The thorns held my trousers like debts,
and the stones kept a tally of my bones.
My feet are split, Mother;
they are swollen,
but they are warm.
They have not forgotten
the religion of running.

Mother, please,
don’t call me home now.

I am tired.
I am so tired.
My legs shake like a broken fence
when I stop.
But I did not come this far
to turn back at the white line of the edge,
to sit on the bench of the dead
and listen to the living shout.

I have suffered too long in the quiet
to leave without a noise.
I am waiting for that sudden, holy roar;
the one that breaks the sky
when someone scores,
even if the name they scream
isn’t mine.
I want to jump once,
just once,
with the weight of the world off my heels,
and forget exactly where I’m hurt.

Mother, the field is right there.
I can smell the bruised grass.
Can’t you smell it too?
I can see the goalposts
leaning through the trees
like the arms of a father
waiting to hold me warm.

Please,
be patient with me, Mother,
don’t call me home now.

Lower your voice.
Give me just a few more seconds
of the sun.
One touch.
One kick that lifts the dust
in a golden cloud
and makes a sound
that the stadium must answer.

I want to feel the euphoria
of a crowd
that does not know my pain,
only my speed.

Mother, please,
don’t call me home now.

After the whistle blows,
after the grass has been tasted,
if you must call me back into the dark—
call me.

But not now.
The ball is in the air,
and I have not yet seen it land.