back home,
the calendars
were full of us,
names for every day.

we took sweets to school,
wished each other well
in the corridors,
as if the day itself
was a friend.

bonbons waited,
a handful of flowers,
the warmest hugs.
they were small,
but made the day
feel special.
for it was.

here, in my second home,
there are none.
i never really cared
for name days,
not the way others did —
but i miss the fuss
and the unspoken promise.

today slipped by
like a coin
rolled under the bed,
with a thought
gnawing at me.
perhaps growing up
is simply learning
to accept
that some traditions end.

Sometimes I'm nostalgic
for frost flowers and a hot water bottle
old winter fantasies

to pictures of the parvis
our house full of aunties
the garden full of apples

a basket full of nuts
always something to celebrate
then, but for now

that is much too far away
now it is empty
behind the pictures

I could take with me
Missing the barren land
the wonder of the gardens

missing the unpacked smells
of the market and the passion
missing the songs of my youth

wiped and overwritten
I lead a new life
in my emigrated hand

Not at home. Not there,

nor here. At night I shout it --


over the rooftops.

I'm just
SO TIRED OF MOVING!
I could barely bring myself to
pack up my toothbrush
it has been sitting in the same orange mug
for months now and
I need to move it?
my shampoo is now zipped away in a plastic baggy
and my hair ties strangle my brush
all that remains are my
pyjamas and tomorrow's clothes.
How quickly it all can change
one day I was
settling in, welcomed by a hug and
one day I was only,
eating dinner with you, made vegetarian for me and
one day I was alone at home and it was all okay and now
I need to move?
I hope you wish I could stay as much as I want to
I hope you think about me at dinner where there is no plate or cup
I hope when you walk past my door you get a
bittersweet smile
and you think about me for a few seconds of time
I now I will think about you each time they
do something slightly off
a little
too different than you would
and I
WANT TO GO HOME
I've been gone for far too long
(!)
but that would mean I need to
PACK IT ALL UP
and GET ON A PLANE
and it's just a little while longer
hold on sweetie, hold on

I wanna run to you in an airport
Like they do in 90s romance movies
Because I miss you and
I’ve been away from home for two years

I want to sit on the beach and explain the landscape that
You know better than I do
In the language it was originally loved in, that
You never bothered to learn

Why would you?
You dip your feet shallowly
Into the water instead of dunking yourself
Like I do, down up down up down
Because you’ll be back tomorrow
And I’ll spend fractions of me

Waiting for a call or a text
For 20 bucks to send you
To breathe plumeria-scented air
From the oil on the skin of your neck
For a picture of the freckles on the webbing

between your index and thumb, and the ring
That I bought you before I left so that in the pictures
you post with your white boyfriend
I’m there on your finger

So when he’s teaching you the ‘local’ lifestyle
I’m there on your finger
So when you island hop for a surfing class
You keep me on your finger, where I can feel the waves.

I want to come home but I can’t, not before
I buy you a new ring, out here
in the empty expanse of a Where’s Waldo puzzle
It has to be

Something expensive, something durable
That won’t tarnish in the island
humidity, something that your
San-Francisco friends will ooh and ahh at
Because I want to see you wearing it when I get home.

I’ve been away from home for fifteen years
I return in my dreams, but the soil
doesn’t feel right, and the love isn’t how
my mother’s father’s father described it

At the beach, lots of people swim, but no one else
Keeps their head under and lets the water breathe life into their hair.
Lets the water into their mouth, chokes, then does it again.
But I like the way you

Dipped your feet in when you watched me
Leave, on a boat chasing Troy
Venus my northern star
As I enter the storm

My boat floats through the violence,
against Poseidon’s abundant will
because my sail made up of duct-taped exam scores
And half-organized sermons
Is mightier than any of his sons

I’ve been away since 700 BCE
But you’ll still know me when I come home

My heart sought a home, even when I was in one,
I moved here almost 9 years ago, I gave it my best,
To settle, to adapt, to overcome, to thrive even,
Instead I corroded, I mangled, I survived choiceless;

Through all your lush green and the rain,
I never found real comfort, just a respite,
I suppose I was stupid to expect it at all,
How does one find home in a war?

Nothing has changed, I don't expect it now,
I was just a city boy abandoned far away,
In an land, where I couldn't speak or relate to,
I'm supposed to belong here and I don't;

It's amazing how far I've placed my mind away,
I rarely live in that certain aspect of my existence,
I'm somewhere I don't belong and can't go back,
Where I used to belong no longer belongs to me;

I'm a nomad in a place I'll never understand,
I've grown accustomed to it's people and things,
The tailored familiarity often backfires into me,
I can't be in tune with them or them me,

I'm a child of the Earth, nameless and unbound,
Perhaps there is hope after all, I'm undefined,
Tried to fit in their boxes, gracefully broke all of it,
Maybe I don't fit in anywhere, the wildcard;

I do take great pride in that, it's a badge of quality,
The untamed among the tamed, blessed with chaos,
A mercurial maverick who desires rest and calm,
I'm only a person after all so I hope, I hope, I hope...

I rake the ashes

of the olive stones and I --


smell my homesickness.

I didn't even live by a river
yet again I stare into the distance

at nothing, at the water
that cannot choose either

where it ends up
over which toxic grounds
and prickly expectations
diluted, frozen or eaten
by a thousand kilometers of sun

Black wings of homesickness
grow on my shoulders

but I know I'm covered
by the lion of my duties

to people like me
who once left somewhere
dreaming, to learn
that there is no way back
to their youth

February Morning!
How gracefully you in your nostalgic attire trigger memories
and this profound understanding;

The rushing energies before school
How I wish I could go back and take hold,
Of those hours of pure fantasies that wasn't disturbed
by the thought of my parents getting old;

February Morning!
Maybe your fragrance wouldn't have hit me so hard,
If I wasn't preparing towards a seemingly fresh start
in the lands of the lake poets;

And I now wonder,
Intimidated by your Swift withering,
how life has hypnotized me into singing
words of worth
for the synthetic and tangible shimmering;
I feel you've woken me up from an hazy conscious;

Next year,
If I'm to feel your caressing light again,
It mightn't be from my beauteous and evergreen nest;

Maybe you'll come in a different costume,
bearing a distinct scent
That I'll both adore and hate;

Maybe because
your wind will then carry a cold solitude
and I'll terribly miss my brother and our silly disputes;
while the chaotic kitchen clangs would seem so distant
comparing to the silent heaves of crocuses in outside gardens;

February Morning!
I know if I get to know you there,
My heavy hours in library won't stop me from reminiscing;

Maybe,
Nostalgia would strike me more violently
but this time
accompanying a yearning that'll pierce my heart silently;