I tasted a dream.
Not like the kind that flits behind your eyelids,
but one that fills your mouth,
seeps into your lungs,
makes you realize you’ve been breathing smoke your whole life
without knowing it had a name.
It was a place, not made of perfection,
but of possibility.
And possibility is more intoxicating than any promise,
because I had never been offered even that.
It bloomed on my tongue,
sweet in ways I didn’t know the world could be.
I hadn’t known silence could mean safety.
That eyes could look without measuring.
That streets could exist without whispering threats in every crack.
That names like mine didn’t have to come with apology.
Home was barbed wire wrapped in anthem,
a hymn to erasure sung in every streetlight,
every flag that demanded your silence.
It wasn’t even a whole mouthful.
Just a touch---
a trace,
the way a fruit bruised open
perfumes the air but does not last.
That’s how fast it left.
Because I was only on loan.
A borrowed heartbeat.
A visitor in my own liberation.
And I, a child still,
with legs not long enough to stay,
hands too small to hold on,
am pulled backward by forces
that do not speak in kindness.
And the nightmare,
oh, it waited.
Patient as death,
hungry as fire.
It didn’t disappear just because I saw the sun.
It watched me bask
and smiled
with teeth.
I live with the aftertaste
of what the world could be
rotting sweet
on the back of my tongue.
And try not to starve
from remembering.
Apr 7
Apr 7, 2026 at 3:56 AM UTC
I tasted a dream.
Not like the kind that flits behind your eyelids,
but one that fills your mouth,
seeps into your lungs,
makes you realize you’ve been breathing smoke your whole life
without knowing it had a name.
It was a place, not made of perfection,
but of possibility.
And possibility is more intoxicating than any promise,
because I had never been offered even that.
It bloomed on my tongue,
sweet in ways I didn’t know the world could be.
I hadn’t known silence could mean safety.
That eyes could look without measuring.
That streets could exist without whispering threats in every crack.
That names like mine didn’t have to come with apology.
Home was barbed wire wrapped in anthem,
a hymn to erasure sung in every streetlight,
every flag that demanded your silence.
It wasn’t even a whole mouthful.
Just a touch---
a trace,
the way a fruit bruised open
perfumes the air but does not last.
That’s how fast it left.
Because I was only on loan.
A borrowed heartbeat.
A visitor in my own liberation.
And I, a child still,
with legs not long enough to stay,
hands too small to hold on,
am pulled backward by forces
that do not speak in kindness.
And the nightmare,
oh, it waited.
Patient as death,
hungry as fire.
It didn’t disappear just because I saw the sun.
It watched me bask
and smiled
with teeth.
I live with the aftertaste
of what the world could be
rotting sweet
on the back of my tongue.
And try not to starve
from remembering.
I finally get to go back this summer for three weeks AND it's also where the loml lives so bonus
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