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In Nepal / So Hum

Caught his eye
Walking in the mid day heat
In Bhaktapur.

Faraway – – look

Both of us a little like strangers,
Though he was born here
In his dusty gem encased by mountains
Cradled in the mist

He’d since
Seen the sea in Spain
& there gaining a new life
Lost some of the old

the cold mornings when he’d run laps around the pokhari with the other boys. One was always fastest – ran two times around before he could finish one.

We sit at its side now, smoking our cigarettes,
& I can’t tell how he feels
when he says that the children playing in the streets
Are foreign to him now.

by Aoife Higgins

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Echo

bright splashes of sound and smell laugh 
in my face as I drag 
a finger through the dusty residue of last night’s 
dreams
thoughts reaching eagerly for the edge of our windowsill 

voices ring through my sister’s room and 
small feet
chase the goats of Rue 3
I stick out my tongue because the air 
is warm and salty and I
am glad to be alive

my feet find their way to the kitchen 
and I smile up at a dripping face
“here”
I wriggle my hips into the skirt held out for me 
stiff 
with the sun and wind of Harmattan

the trucks begin to arrive 
shouting hello to the watchman and we run 
bare feet slapping across the cement, skidding 
to a stop in the sudden sand
as I sneak a look behind me 
before ducking through the doors

whip the willow
is new for us but the music 
is already in our veins 
so we listen our way into the patterns on the floor
rhythm 
pulling the room in dizzy circles
lock elbows and spin faster
crooked 
grin
we could dance 
all night 

later
the roof is a breathless 
purple 
leaning out over the courtyard, the moon 
is nowhere to be found
quiet footsteps 
pad on the stairs 
I turn around and you point 
so we look up at the sky and 
pick a star to wish on 

… 

an alarm clock rings in the distance 
my eyes fly open 
groping for the mosquito net 
and I turn my face towards the window, but there’s a wall 
instead
confused snow 
drifting quietly 
to the ground outside 
a new window 
over there
I am lost and this must be 
Minnesota

by Kekelime

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Eyeroll

we are done writing 
for this summer 
our words 
trickled out in cautious hope 
as she wove the squirrels into our story 
and he stood, refusing to let another person leave. 
I traced the interstate with two fingers 
in the misty glass, and 
again in the small oval that was my window 
three planes later 
I’m rolling down a mountain on my hands and 
knees 
a small red dot waits on my screen. 
sleep well, banana. 

by Kekelime

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Lens

my memories, they are not of Ethiolo 
of small feet winding 
down a dusty path to a water-well worn 
with the chatter of women, girls I used to know 

I can’t see the dirt, red against your ankles
hear the call of buckets to one another 
sloshing in the sway of hips
flip flops mingled in the early morning light

I remember knives flying 
tongues sliding 
across the smooth expanse of the language we shared
stretched through our fingers as peppers danced, green 
into your pan 

the screech of a wheelbarrow 
bare feet slapped 
across the bricks, padded
through the sand 

I remember 
sticky heat, and 
breeze through my hair
waves lapping 
against a shore that curves into the distance 
lost blue in a city sky 

by Kekelime

By CulTuremiKs, ago

It’s a Funny Sort of Feeling

it’s a funny sort of feeling
of longing for places 
you know you cannot return to
and even if you could
it wouldn’t be the same.

it’s a funny sort of feeling
to dream of a life you once had
one where every bit of you
almost
wished you were somewhere else 
(far away)
that you could start over again
and then you wake up and find that
you got your wish
and you are no happier

it’s a funny sort of feeling
wishing you could turn back time
relive part of your life
just so you could have what you used to but
you know you can’t
because Time has only one Master

it’s a funny sort of feeling
when you start to forget
and eventually all you have left of places you once knew like the back of your hand are
bits and pieces of sound and smell
fragments of faces and wisps of songs you used to listen to every day but now
now you can’t stand to anymore because all you hear is
everything you used to have

by Africameleon

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Farewell?

it wasn’t perfect
no, far from it
but we somehow found perfection
through wakeup calls and
muddy afternoons
through endless nights and 
sleepy skies
through glowing embers and
fiery grins
and the pitchblack sky
raining streaks of colour
chaos intertwining with
shouts of glee
and falling asleep to floating circlets of colour
and the biting cold
to muffled giggles and whispered: 
‘nights
it wasn’t perfect, no
but it was perfecter than I could’ve 
ever asked for

by Africameleon

By CulTuremiKs, ago

To My New Friends (from an MK)

There is not enough time.
There is never enough time
From the moment we meet
I am thinking of the end; maybe
Because I have done this before
I’ve done this too many times before
And every ending is too soon so
There are two choices in response to that truth.
Courage or cowardice, love or fear,
Connection or solitude.
I have never claimed to be courageous,
But I’m trying.
Dear God I’m trying and it’s harder
Than I thought it would be…

There is not going to be enough time
For me to love you in
And the coward in me says don’t try
But the image of God in my soul
Says otherwise.
So I’m trying.

by Ghanaperu

By CulTuremiKs, ago

TCK Syndrome

There will be no trace
of me, here
after I have left
The colours of my paintings on the walls
are not stains
the laughter of the memories
won’t stay forever
and everything that ever made this 
space mine
is transportable

I knew enough when I came here 
to plan it this way

So you’re standing at the door
smiling for the hope of a future
but I
can feel the suitcase handle in my fingers
and I don’t remember myself 
anymore

Does that make me
a bad person?
If I have shuttered my mind
and heart and soul,
folded my memories away into dusty boxes
and stacked them in the back
of the attic, is that
weakness?

All I know is
you have never left
like how I have left
and you can’t understand – 
impermanence flows through
my veins as the very blood of my only hope
for survival

So I will smile and wave
at you in the doorway
and gather up my belongings
to carry myself away in

I can never return
because
nothing is ever the same again

by Ghanaperu

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Plane Ticket News

I’m going back.
Staring at the paper in my 
hands, all is dark around me except
this one fact.
I’m going back.

Did I choose this?
Do I want this?
My sister grins, wide and knowledgeable
as if this choice will define 
the joy of my future.
I don’t think I meant to choose this.
But how could she know? For her
it is home and light and safety, nothing
dark in her history.

In the dark of the evening, all
the memories return like shadows and ghosts
slamming through the walls around me
and I have nothing to say to them, so
my eyes are tightly shut as if that will help…
Am I going crazy?
Fighting against things that aren’t even here…

I’m going back. 
There is no choice now, not anymore. Only
the plane tickets in my hand
and the excitement of my friends
and the look in my sister’s eyes
when she tells me she is glad.

I think, I tell her carefully,
I think I’d rather die.

by Ghanaperu

By CulTuremiKs, ago

(Don’t) Keep Your Distance

I know about this,
this dark stillness illuminated 
only by a single streetlight.
orange glow over everything
and we try
to forget
that we ever cared.

I know about this, 
this quiet loneliness surrounded
by unending pavement.
dotted lines marking the way
to nowhere
just like
every other time before.

But
rewind, lighting fast, 
because this hasn’t happened
yet

Today is the beginning, 
shy smiles across the room
before we know anything
and I want to tell you,
I am a prophet and love
always hurts in the end but please,
please don’t
keep your distance.

by Ghanaperu

By CulTuremiKs, ago