[EU] At the bus stop, feeling irritable and angry, you can't stop brooding over the abusive relationship with your father. An old bearded man sitting nearby with a gas stove smiles kindly at you. "Sit down. Why don't you enjoy a cup of calming jasmine tea?" A flash from a lifetime past. "...Uncle?"

[Poem]

Uncle John? Is that you? His wrinkles dewlapped his eyes as he smiled Said he You can call me that I felt the profuse tingling that I knew him immense tingling i conveyed through the knit in my brow he heard me and the curtains of his skin they flapped As he laughed jocundly in cheer I sipped the jasmine from the cuppa he offered Unaware till the ceramic touched my lips To receive warmth was unknown but surreal and in that exchange not so unknown after all He said, you know those stock images they mass manufacture to fill in frames till they're replaced with photographs 'that really matter' I am that stock photograph of the guy with the goat maybe thats where you know me from? i fall into my tide of memories unkind and reflect the pictures that adorn my house not my house theirs his I tremble at the lifelessness and indifference as i pass the gallery of togetherness mass manufactured for christmas postcards

The bus arrives and like a clicking camera Changes the desires and destinations of the microcosm i stand in With the people it takes away with it and people it offers I let this one go Just for one more sip of tea from the guy with the goat Maybe two Truthfully For his knowing fatherly eyes I stay A little while longer Not talking much Like taking shadow from oak This time when I buy a picture frame I will let it be the guy with the goat And when someone enquires I will gently label it as a memory yet to made

Am I lying?I dont know But the guy with the goat does.

/r/WritingPrompts Thread