i knew i’d miss mangos pale yellow, smooth, size of two fists combined peeled, sliced and juicy sweet
i was right but surprised by warm peaches firm and sun-yellow picked fresh, washed clean in summer camp sinks juicy sweet and running down my chin
i knew i’d miss lilawadee fragrant, perfect white even when scattered below branches of waxy leaves
i was right but i met magnolia fragrant, perfect white big blossoms to get lost in and breathe myself dizzy
i don’t remember, but mom does a little girl crying water tower! water tower! each time we passed one
that girl is a stranger, lost in time to some parallel stream the magic of water towers is now lost on me but West Texas sunsets enchant, even that silhouette
i was right to miss Thailand – rhinoceros beetles, rambutan, raindrops clamoring on tin roofs – and i still do but i have been touched by Texas, too
Do you know how many times I have moved? Sometimes I count them on my fingers, fistful after fistful of tears swollen in my throat and I try to remember every single one but I can’t.
Too many. Too many times, it’s the only number that fits the emotion and I know this won’t make sense to you but my hands are full of this place now and I can’t hold any more.
When I open my palms the memories are dripping out and I’m afraid if I stay longer I will forget.
I don’t want to forget.
Do you know how many times I have moved? When I sleep I dream of muted whispers in languages you don’t speak and when I wake up I write songs about the dusty grass of places you’ve never been and sometimes when you hold my hand I imagine the worlds I have known imprinted on my palm, burning you in your ignorance. How could anyone expect you to love something as fragmented as me?
I tried, I really tried to unclench my fists of memories, to open up my hands and belong. But every time I look at my palm I see the lines of roads leading other places and I can’t stop tracing them, can’t stop aching to leave. I can’t be part of a whole world; everything is random moments and I am disconnected from the planned future.
I’m not here to stay. I’m never here to stay.
You asked me tonight to go out with you, tired grin through voice texting and I wanted to say no.
But instead I said yes and I drove on these winding roads that never lead to other places and I opened my hands to you. I stayed another day, I spilled a few more memories and let you matter a little bit more – I loved.
Do you know how many times I have moved?
Too many, it’s the only answer that fits and when I tell you I love you I want you to think of that. I don’t know how to be a part of just one world, how to hold your hand and love and be loved without being burned by the smallness of the story.
Staying here is like being trapped, and I value freedom. But even more than freedom, I value you.
This is a TCK’s love poem, telling you how badly I want to leave in hopes that you will understand how deeply you matter…
It’s okay if you don’t understand.
There is a vast difference between us, a Sahara Desert of sandy separation but I’m trying (please tell me you can see that I’m trying) not to keep my distance.
It’s my desert. And every day I stay the liquid memories leak out of my hands into the sand and I think, I think, new life is growing here. New life, small and green and fragile, hopeful and timid.
So I will grow a trail of oasis across this desert, copy for you the map of roads on my palms and let you destroy this distance I have always kept.
But I’m not making promises.
One day I will add another number to “too many” and I will shut my fists tight around these memories and I will leave.
But today is not one day, and for now I am busy growing life in a desert with you.
Just don’t keep your distance, and I won’t keep mine.
Another filled up, worn-out suitcase, another crossed off day— Tomorrow I’ll again be going a million miles away. I know someday I’ll return, but I know it won’t be the same Because that’s just how it’s always worked in the traveler’s game: Always moving; always settled; I don’t fit in; I belong— Trying to blend in but always doing someone’s culture wrong. I love the memories; I’m going to hold them close and dear. Farwell, the ticket says I’ve got to leave, so goodbye to here.
Goodbye to every face I’ve come to love. Hello to familiar skies above. Goodbye to what I’ve learned so I can blend. Hello to strange customs that are my friend. I face it all with no and every fear. Hello to over there; goodbye to here.
I go through the familiar airport procedures and routines Until it’s my turn to get into that big flying machine. As I take off, I watch everything below grow so small, And I can’t believe that again I’m leaving behind it all. Trying not to cry even though I’ve got memories to keep. Trying to keep myself entertained and then just fall asleep. Trying not to laugh as I get excited about what’s ahead. Trying to trust that we follow where God has faithfully led.
Goodbye to every face I’ve come to love. Hello to familiar skies above. Goodbye to what I’ve learned so I can blend. Hello to strange customs that are my friend. I face it all with no and every fear. Hello to over there; goodbye to here.
I can’t imagine life for those who always live in one place, Knowing what they’ll do each day and recognizing every face. One mind, one tongue, one heart, one life, one home, one land where they live. They say I sacrifice, but there’s more than what you see me give. Maybe I can’t define home or use one speech to tell how I feel, But I know I’ve come to love this world in a way much more real. Someday maybe I’ll settle in a place most people call home, But my heart still won’t understand why I can’t forever roam.
Goodbye to every face I’ve come to love. Hello to familiar skies above. Goodbye to what I’ve learned so I can blend. Hello to strange customs that are my friend. I face it all with no and every fear. Hello to over there; goodbye to here.
With the wings of an Eagle I cry Screaming the freedom of wind and sky Untethered from all land and place I’m Queen of the unclaimed space
With Chameleon scales, I master disguise Waiting for my cue with roaming eyes Blending to each new culture displayed As my skin knows no original shade
With a turtle’s dark shell I hide Holding my emotion protected inside Come too close and I will retract To keep my softer sides intact
With a camel’s back and wandering feet I’m built to travel through the heat My restless nature drives me on Till all I’ve been or known is gone
With so many parts and pieces The more you see the confusion increases Nothing is simply mine but my name No creature’s form can I fully claim
1. I wrote something today even though I had nothing to say there is too much music here too many people who say what I want to say better than I ever could.
So I find myself sucked into the information age and suddenly time means something. Once upon a time I had read every book available to me but now, I could never do that.
Once (or twice) there I went a whole day without ever looking at a clock. Time is just a word there but here it is what they (we?) live by.
2. Someone asked me, yesterday, the one question none of us can answer – “Where are you from?” And I wanted to say “nowhere” or “everywhere” or “God” or “Africa” or any number of other things but suddenly I didn’t have the energy to explain again so I said “Pennsylvania.” After all, I know people there. It is as good a place as any other for me to pick.
But really, who I am now is only a fleeting identity. Maybe tomorrow I will be someone else – speak another language and claim another place as my hometown, or maybe I won’t.
But for now, for today, this is who I am and what I am for those who ask me that (such a stupid question. I am a person, of course!) And here I stand temporarily permanent.
Under country, over country, Never committed and always free, But that’s freedom by plane, And not freedom of pain.
That pain hides in the greetings that are filled with goodbyes, Our hello is rather uninviting, we realize. But it’s a result of a normal routine Of always having to leave as the in-between.
Our looks deceive – We are not who you believe. We know both more thank you think, And less than you think.
Yellow in the sea of Blue, In the sea of Yellow, we are Blue. Holding the knowledge of a Green We are mistaken as pretentious, as causing a scene.
We return home To absorb the culture of home, But Painters admire each color alone, For Black absorbs all, yet has no culture of its own.
Yet there’s beauty in Green! It’s not a fault to be in-between. But Painters are stubborn, Holding the old standard of one, they just don’t learn
That Green is both – it’s two – Not yellow, not blue. Is that not so simple? Yet it remains incomprehensible.
You may know us as Global Citizens; We carry the global burdens. The dark eye bags remain as battle scars of jet-lag, Telling of the loss and grief from flag to flag.
Some of us live on the prayer cards on your fridge, Between you and the 3rd world, we’re the bridge. Existing as the good of the world in your sight, It is a fallacy we must rewrite.
If we didn’t bring our Sunday’s best To visit your church to impress, Perhaps you would be disillusioned, and the truth be known Of the dirt we bear, of the sin we own.
The truth is that we are scruffy With the odor of our homes stuck to our shirts, a smell that is friendly, Familiar because it is foreign, Foreign to any other person.
If our real closet was opened, it would burst. Culottes falling first, Hand-me-downs intertwined, Revealing our fashion – only 10 years behind!
The skin of a chameleon Has granted us the chance of one in a million To adapt, give, and share all before noon, And before we’re gone, for our goodbyes come all too soon.
I am a confusion of cultures. Uniquely me. I think this is good because I can understand the traveler, sojourner, foreigner, the homesickness that comes. I think this is bad because I cannot be understood by the person who has sown and grown in one place. They know not the real meaning of homesickness that hits me now and then. Sometimes I despair of understanding them. I am an island and a United Nations. Who can recognize either in me but God?
