#homesickness
To all the living in this world,
One place so precious and warm.
One place so comforting,
that's why we call it home.
It's the place where we were born and fed,
The place that harbored our mindless acts.
Through joys and sorrows, tears and dread,
It embraced us, never turning its back.
To all the living in this world,
One place so precious and warm.
One place so entrancing,
that's why we call it home.
Feb 4
Feb 4, 2026 at 1:01 AM UTC
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.
Sep 28, 2025
Sep 28, 2025 at 11:16 AM UTC
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
Jul 7, 2025
Jul 7, 2025 at 3:45 AM UTC
Not at home. Not there,
nor here. At night I shout it --
over the rooftops.
Jul 5, 2025
Jul 5, 2025 at 2:50 AM UTC
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
Apr 4, 2025
Apr 4, 2025 at 2:18 PM UTC
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
Dec 19, 2024
Dec 19, 2024 at 1:03 AM UTC
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...
Mar 12, 2024
Mar 12, 2024 at 11:21 AM UTC
I rake the ashes
of the olive stones and I --
smell my homesickness.
Jul 31, 2023
Jul 31, 2023 at 3:36 AM UTC
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
Feb 18, 2022
Feb 18, 2022 at 3:26 AM UTC
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;
Feb 12, 2022
Feb 12, 2022 at 1:13 AM UTC
Another college tour, another favor. This time it was an old schoolmate, George and his parents who were taking the official tour. I was going to babysit his little sister Mary (5) while they walked around.
It was good to see someone from home and sad in a way. For a moment, I had a tugging feeling, like there was a hook deep inside me and the reel was back home.
When I first saw George I remembered a time, in 10th grade, before COVID. I was leaving school early and waiting to be picked up. Twenty track boys, fresh from their daily run, were lounging, seductively around. George, in particular, in a pose rather like Michelangelo’s Adam. *** I remember thinking at the time.
I smiled at that long-ago tableau. “What?” George asked, he was watching me. “Nothing,” I smiled, “Just looking forward to babysitting”
Mary and I exercised to a video, had a pizza delivered and colored - crayons aren’t easy to find in the modern college environment so we used high-lighters to create delicate, watercolor-like masterpieces.
As we drew, Mary said, off-handedly, “You’re really nice,” as if the nature of my character had been in some dispute. Still, I still felt warmly complemented.
When the tour was over, we were walking up science hill toward their car and the sun was declining to sunset. “How do you like it,” George asked, confidentially, head lowered, voice low enough not to be overheard by his parents who were walking a few yards behind us with Mary. “There’s a LOT of reading,” I said, shruggingly. “but I’m keeping up.” Last year I was a junior, this year I’m in college. It seemed absurd.
How do you conjure a vision for someone of what college would be like, when college experiences are so individual? The writer's dilemma, interpreted by a babysitter.
As we reached their car, the caroling bells started ringing (5pm) from Harkness Tower. It was the perfect send-off. Again I felt the pull of homesickness but my phone plinked and the emotion didn’t even last as long as dusk.
Dec 8, 2021
Dec 8, 2021 at 7:39 AM UTC
it’s not that i don’t want to go back
i don’t even know if my grounds are sound
i just don’t want to be the person to return
only when someone has died
Nov 12, 2021
Nov 12, 2021 at 7:10 AM UTC
the homesick one looks up to ask
"please, when do we go back?
for tears will quickly do their task,
will carve another track"
the knowing one just turns and smiles,
explaining once again,
that back is so much more than miles,
that now has become then
the homesick one, though, doesn't hear
the answer, for the thousandth time,
she wants to turn a deafened ear
so may the truth well chime
the truth that home is far away
that there will be a thought of when,
until that longed-for summers day
when she is home again
that home forever grows
the knowing one reminds once more
as sure as anything she knows
it's right there in her core
yet homesick one still asks and calls
relentlessly for home
she feels imprisoned by the walls
she wishes she could roam
she begs and screams for unity
for just one little trace
of love, of that community
where she had found her place
the knowing ones exterior cracks
the smile cant further hold
the tears now finally run their tracks
and masks begin to fold
and suddenly they all burst out
my knowing, homesick tears
of longing and I almost shout
something to never reach their ears
I want to scream how this is wrong
that I feel empty without them
that where my love and joy will stem
is the home where I belong
I dont, of course, I never would
the knowing one reminds me soon
that home I know is just as good
and still I long for come next June
Oct 3, 2021
Oct 3, 2021 at 4:24 AM UTC
We did not leave
yet novelty stood out
As if we were strangers in this place
A certain loneliness bloomed
And silence grew from it
We did not leave
yet vacancies filled in
and it's suffocating
We became a village
of foreign gazes and nostalgia
I wanna go home
Can we go home?
Feb 14, 2021
Feb 14, 2021 at 12:37 AM UTC
fever burning in my mind
Which road leads me home?
i lost something I can not find
and forgot which way I came from
the crowded streets bleed out at night
and the rains cleans the mess in the morning
A wool is tied around my eyes
And the devil is singing his word of warning
on every other corner lives a fallen god
In others, are the monsters
Painting with blood on the ***** facade
Images of dread and wonder
a nightmare, laughters, faces in smoke
When I awoke my house was on fire
from under my bed, they laugh as I choke
And lay in place my funeral pyre
I got on that train because I thought I could leave
For a second, I lingered in the doorway
but escaping past tenses has ways to deceive
and I numbed out the signals of warning
The fever has burned a hole in my mind
And blurred out the vision of home
What is lost has been lost and I can not find
The direction that I came from
Nov 19, 2020
Nov 19, 2020 at 6:46 PM UTC
Oh how silly for a heart to yearn for a home that doesnt exist
For a chest to ache with the sickness that one only gets when they've traveled too far
For a soul to feel as though it were born in the wrong universe
For hands to tingle with idle magic at their fingertips
Until it overflows, onto a page, into a song, over pillows and sheets as tears cascade and stain and drown
Oh how tragic for Hiraeth to take hold
Oct 29, 2020
Oct 29, 2020 at 6:03 AM UTC
Wander herb, full moon:
we are homesick in autumn –
in many places.
Oct 8, 2020
Oct 8, 2020 at 5:02 AM UTC
i took the morning train today.
hushed city streets and
sweater-grey skies,
clouds like milk in coffee.
a flurry of wings, silent strangers,
heads down, umbrellas up,
sunshine dreams and briefcases.
i took the morning train today.
left the city behind me,
grey walls and grey pavement
and grey concrete skies.
red buses, black taxis,
camera clicks and glinting lenses,
crumbling walls and lost tourists.
i took the morning train today.
watched as the city fell away
behind the horizon,
rain drumming on the glass.
somewhere, birdsong
and the glint of blue skies
beckons me home.
Mar 24, 2020
Mar 24, 2020 at 2:28 PM UTC
My heart is a shrivel of miagos bushes,
uprooted, shoved, chucked in new soil;
the leaves between my lips,
now, in an unhealthy shade of chartreuse.
Regardless, I have taught myself
to shear them into tiny leaf crumbs,
making trails —
marking the houses, the buildings,
the roads of this foreign city,
safekeeping directions
into a catalog of things that aren't home.
My feet are weary and somehow,
they manage to find their way
back in this cold, oppressive room.
And yet, how does one sleep under the glare of these walls?
How does one revive a dying garden
in a city that only knows
the language of tires as they kiss the pavements,
in a city that only knows
the walis tingting's weary sweeping
of these crumbs of miagos leaves —
the ones leading back home?
Yes,
I can teach my tongue and all its browning, dying leaves
to remember these new ways of growth,
these new words, new schedules,
new routes, new streets.
Alas, even the waters, even the sun
can't teach it to love the language it doesn't speak.
Mar 6, 2020
Mar 6, 2020 at 7:23 PM UTC
Hiraeth - A welsh word that means homesickness for a home that never was.
I wonder what home did he,
Who made this word, mean or
What you think when you read it.
Was he thinking about a person?
I like to think he was.
But then again,
As the word rolls around my mouth,
You cross my mind.
Mar 22, 2019
Mar 22, 2019 at 12:52 AM UTC
late at night
laying on bed
staring the ceiling
as the cigarette's ash falls down
tear rolls down from the eyes
making me fall apart
with the feeling of
homesickness
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 8:52 AM UTC
I love this filthy city with all of my ****** heart.
The sweltering summer streets (the buildings themselves sweat),
Where the 'cool' breeze is still thirty-four degrees,
And you can't walk a metre without needing an icy drink,
The sewage smell permeates through the pavement.
The bitterly cold winters that numb your lips (slur your words for you--drunken in love with her),
Frozen lakes and frosted branches in Regent's park,
I love her icy kiss more than I love myself--more than I have ever loved anything.
But I must leave, you need to know.
I can't stay, I'm sorry,
It will **** me.
She has her hands around my neck,
She strangles me with her embrace,
As she tells me--softly--how softly she loves me.
London, I'm sorry.
I was not built for the built environment,
My heart belongs in muddy fields under skies full of fresh air and clean sunsets,
I yearn for the sensation of dirt and leaves under bare feet.
How cruel,
To fall in love with a place where you don't belong.
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019 at 2:21 PM UTC