When I start out on the journey beyond the wild stumps
She sighs and exhales like a 1976 Chevrolet engine
Like a tractor going up the hill with uneven stones
In a jiffy, she looks like she’s just had a pinch in her exhaust
Because she’s tired like a used-up kitchen steelwire

Tired of her heart going like a boomerang
Up and down like a moody non-periodic pendulum
She loves some certainty; some basic plan
All her life, she’s lived on a blueprint with just a little allowance for random manoeuvre
Such unplanned fits and starts give her depleting fatigue

She is her own boss
She carries her lugage to everywhere she goes
And plans out whether to take breakfast after lunch or immediately after supper
The simple thrill of control makes her gratified
And she’s unsettled like a refugee in Bwagiriza camp with every sway on the ropes of uncertainty

I make her tired with the stories without end
The ones that run on one track and then change direction
The stories that seem to slip through your fingers of reality
She wants to deal with every challenge head-on
And I want to spread it, to take some time and freshen up

But the irony of sorts is that she loves it
She loves to take the passenger’s seat and be driven
She likes to be wrapped up and held with the care of an egg
And to be carried around like a pot of hot chicken soup
She’s dreamt of all that in the fancy spectacle and brace of her man