home.
four letters that make one word.
yet, it brings such heaviness to my heart to hear
for home is unknown to me.
i do not understand what home is,
where it should be.
is it here, in these lands, which alleys i know like the back of my hands?
or is it those lands, which scent i don’t even remember?
they tell me that this is where i belong, though.
that there is no other home.
this soil that my feet have learnt to walk on, this is it, this is,
this is home.
how could i claim another when i have never been apart of her history,
of her sky, of her moon, seasons and mountains? they laugh.
this is where i belong, they prove.
what do you remember of the other you long for? they taunt me with
and i have no reply.
my tongue stays silent because the truth is,
my tiny fingers did not stay long enough to remember the strokes of her soil.
and i know, i know,
it is absurd to want home in lands that were never mine to begin with.
but how?
i want to convince them, but how?
how do i convince those who have always felt home in these four walls,
in this land,
that when the customs officer asks me why, why have you come with a red passport instead of a dark blue one when it so clearly states that this is where you belong?
i want to tell him because that is home, that is home,
not here,
i am a foreigner to these lands.
but i cannot and i won’t.
for when he finally returns my passport into these hands and smiles so gently at me,
he says the words my ears never knew they longed to hear,
“welcome home, beti.”
beti.
suddenly,
the soul feels like it finally is.
and the air hits me,
and my eyes get misty,
and my hands are shaking,
for my feet finally have come
home.
even if just for a moment so.
who do i tell this too,
how do i convince the world
that though these lands have raised me,
those lands bore me?
the nurture i can never forget
so why do they tell me
to forget the nature
of where i have come from?
and to stop searching for something,
a land, a place that is not mine
and never will be?
they would never understand
what it is like
to have been given
then taken
from two lands.
one feet on soil you’ve forever known
and the other,
longing to touch the grounds
you’ve never known.
i wonder most nights,
what it would have been like if my feet had learnt to touch your land.
would it have made roots deep enough, so that i may have stayed?
i wonder of your springs, of your summers and winter nights.
would it have given me the honour to run wild, would it have allowed me to
have danced in the rains
and the stars keep me company through the nights?
would your skies have welcomed me?
would your moon have kissed my skin
and claimed me as you have
those before me?
it is interesting isn’t it?
that though my feet have learnt to walk on another’s land so far away,
that my heart sometimes feels, wishes,
that maybe it could have been your sunsets, your sunrises i grew to see everyday.
to so many, they know where home is, their land, their country.
but my one step has not felt you,
therefore what right have i ever had to call you my own?
but what can i do, for the fates have been such
that i were born off you but never meant to live
through you.
