This is a pinterest page with over 100 pins of TCK creative and artistic expressions, and this user has lots of other boards with TCK resources as well.
Poems Spoken Word
Josh Gibson Media – A Different Time
Josh Gibson Media – “I think the hardest part is not the memories themselves, but it’s searching for the box of memories and realising how far under the bed it is hidden, and how far away that world has become. But Sometimes it’s important to remember, even if it hurts. It’s learning to let go, whilst not forgetting. Its learning that there was a time for that, and there is now a time for this. Holding on to the memories of a place once called home, and knowing things have changed since. And when no one else can understand, because no one else has seen. Its remembering that God understands, God has seen, he was there. He’s collected those memories, the good ones and the tough. And that…that’s more than ok, that is enough.”
Josh Gibson is a London-based content creator with an eye for detail and a passion to create. Check him out at his website –https://joshgibsonmedia.com/
Poems Standard
The Airplane Pillow – TCK poetry
The Airplane Pillow
I’ve been sleeping on an airplane pillow all this while
drowned in a white pillowcase
folded over and set at the top of my mat
and the impermanency has etched itself
over top of every memory I have here
I always knew I wasn’t meant to stay
But somehow that airplane pillow
folded over and over itself until it was
small enough to fit in my pocket, to go back
the same way it arrived; and all my hopes
got tiny too, squished and soft and transportable
like maybe that could make up for the rest
But it didn’t
and I left
everything
hopes and pillows
and all the rest
small behind me
~ Elizabeth Hemp
Poems Standard
Tanzanian Rainy Seasons – TCK Poem
Dar es Salaam Delicacies
Nose pressed up against the window, I wait
for pitter-patters to turn to pelting poundings
as hundreds of flying ants rise upward,
dizzying my eyes and swarming my head.
So predictable: Tanzanian rainy seasons.
“Dad! Come on!” and he brings them as always:
bright yellow boots and clashing pink raincoat
with words on them I can’t yet read, words that
Mom says I’ll learn in school next year.
Tupperware in hand, I rush out,
dancing to a chorus of wings: a flapping frenzy.
Within minutes, I have plenty of the squirming creatures,
my prized possessions, enough to make Mom proud.
Back at home, the three of us busy ourselves.
Dad hangs up my dripping raincoat while
I tug away at endless wings while
Mom heats up the stove and readies
a drizzle of oil, a handful of flying ants, a pinch of salt;
sizzling in the pan, they fry quickly.
Then, around the table, Mom, Dad, and I sit,
munching and crunching our seasonal snack.
So predictable: Tanzanian rainy seasons.
And even though I lived through many of them,
I can no longer recall whether the flying ants
tasted more like bacon bits or burnt popcorn.
So I wait, nose pressed up against the window.
By Melanie Han, an avid traveler and a poet who was born in Korea, grew up in East Africa, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing in Boston. She has won awards from Boston in 100 Words and Lyric, and her poetry has appeared in several magazines and online publications, such as Fathom, Ruminate, and Among Worlds. During her free time, she can be found eating different ethnic foods or visiting new countries.
Poems Standard
Story of a Little Girl
This is how it starts
A little girl, too young to understand,
Told she is leaving behind an apartment
For an adventure, and she is glad.
Too glad to ask questions.
This is the middle, the
Whole entire story really
Dust and heat and foreign languages,
Friends who look different and
The little girl learns so many things
But it all comes down to this
Nothing ever stays the same, nothing
Ever lasts forever.
This is how it ends
A little girl, too old to forget
Is told she is leaving behind her world
For a new one and she is shattered.
Too shattered to protest.
I guess this is the real
Ending though
When the little girl walks
Onto the plane and flies away
Back to the world of
Apartments and becomes
Someone new, someone different,
Someone called
Me.
By Ghanaperu
Other poems by Ghanaperu:
You’re Invited, You Know
TCK Syndrome
Poems Standard
Learning How To Stay – TCK Poem
If This Love Is Supposed To Be Permanent (I Don’t Know How)
Elizabeth Hemp
No one ever taught me how to stay
And you’re getting too close
If this love
Is supposed to be permanent
I don’t know how to do that
And I must confess
You’re scaring me
This close is too close because
What if you leave now
And my world is shattered
As I have always known it will one day be?
Too much power, too much trust, too much
Potential for hurt and no one
Has ever accused me of being an optimist
I don’t know how to stay
This point is farther than
I’ve ever gone before
And I don’t know what comes next
Except leaving
Leaving has always been the abrupt cut off
For all of my history
And I have always hated it but if I’m honest
I don’t know how else to do it
This is the point in the story
Where the ending is supposed to go
And it’s aching nervously
In my bones
I don’t like not knowing what comes next
So there’s no reason to leave
Except every reason in the world
We’re too close, I’m too scared,
You can’t understand this fear in my heart
Compelling me to leave you behind
Before it’s too late and I am the one being left
Again, like always…
Besides that, no one ever taught me
How to stay
And all I know is goodbye
Safety is in goodbye
Safety is in goodbye
Safety is maybe not worth it –
Do I dare to try
And stay?
Poems Standard
I Don’t Recognise Myself Anymore
The purity of the air after rainfall –
The sacred smell of sandalwood
Wafting down from the hilltop shrines
Reminds me of something.
My deadweight soul, flapping with airline tags,
Lies gasping, dusted with the residue of long years
Lettered ‘Fragile’ and ‘This Way Up’
Entreating those that handle it to be careful:
To see it safely on its way to wherever it’s going.
Coat-hangers strewn on the unmade bed,
The unwashed floor, the weary bags,
The cluttered tabletops
Which will perhaps retain traces of my having been here
When I am gone:
A few fingerprints maybe,
Scattered fibres from my clothes
Or crumbs of what I’ve eaten.
Otherwise I’ll be on my way
Like the breath in my lungs
And the black blood rushing from my hidden heart
And the voice of Winter groaning in the pipes
And the hissing gas of the stove
And all the unsaid words and murdered thoughts
Bleeding in the sink of my mind
Incognito down the street, keys clinking in my pocket
With the tumbling leaves and the frantic ghost of the city
To a new address.
And maybe I’ll see you again,
But we both know it won’t be the same.
I’ll twiddle my new keys and feel my chains
As though I’m my own jailer.
Because I don’t recognise myself anymore.
Author Unknown (if you have any information regarding the author please contact us using the form)
Poems Standard
Airport Poems – Elizabeth Hemp
at the bottom of the escalator in terminal 3
I’m sorry
He says
And I hear
Don’t go.
I carefully study the dust
The shadows
The darkness
The hope in the future
Anything except
His eyes.
He takes my hands
Warms my fingers
Kisses me with the gift of release
Brushes my soul with a last
Moment of sunshine
And lets me go.
I’m sorry
I say
But I mean
Goodbye.
Traveler’s Deja Vu
My shoes have walked these carpets before,
On a different continent but
It was the same.
It is always the same.
Quiet sunset, orange glare reflecting
Off the windows but the
Chaos never ends and
It is an odd contrast, calm and frantic
Side by side here.
We are sprawled out, headphone cords
Held in cool palms, hands that know this routine.
The man next to us is tired, army green and brown.
The woman across the walkway is saying goodbye,
Teary eyes and too many hugs…
Maybe it is her first time – she is young.
I can’t remember my first time.
The little ants in neon vests outside are scurrying
And inside every type of shoe imaginable walks past
But it all feels familiar, deja vu from a thousand
Past experiences – my passport might not agree
But I am an International; airports will always
Feel like home.
Read more TCK poems – this one includes a response from Elizabeth Hemp
Poems Standard
But I Did Anyway – Mock Funeral
Mock Funeral
There was no funeral.
No flowers.
No ceremony.
No one had died.
No weeping or wailing.
Just in my heart.
I can’t…
But I did anyway,
and nobody knew I couldn’t.
I don’t want to…
But nobody else said they didn’t.
So I put down my panic
and picked up my luggage
and got on the plane.
There was no funeral.
By Alex Graham James
A Response
“I can’t. But I did anyway, and nobody knew I couldn’t.”
Isn’t that the summary of every goodbye I have lived through? How many times have I done the impossible, entered into the unimaginable simply because I must? The human spirit is resilient, determined to live, capable of withstanding much. All the same, every time I do something I can’t, I lose myself. Piece by piece I’m losing myself, trails of bloody footprints in my wake.
No words or imagery could ever be enough to capture it, and I’ve spent my whole life searching for how to explain something that is inexplicable. The sacrifice of innocence, the absolute helplessness of a child, the depth of the ache bound up inside my knowledge. Too much knowledge, too much logic, and I cut myself off from the relief of grief, thinking I hadn’t earned it. Wasn’t good enough for it. Isn’t everyone good enough for grief?
By Elizabeth Hemp
Poems Standard
What Keeps You Here?
a strawberry
What keeps you here
I ask my heart
Stranger in a strange land, so white, so clean
These fields in June, she laughs
Your red-stained fingers
A taste of heaven beneath each leaf
And this sky expansive and clear
I wonder why, my heart, you hold
Steady on small delights after
Months of sifting memories
Under grey skies
Testing each day as we
Walk out into this not-all-bad
But still foreign place
I am young, says she –
A child who races, explores,
Finds beauty even here
And welcomes the new, trusting
Inviting sweet existence even
Within this space of not belonging
I hold out for
Simple Wonders;
Encounters with the Presence
Crouched amongst the rows I ponder this
Sifting through the too-soon and the already-past
I find it.
The ripest, the reddest berry
Welcomes me into the perfect balance
Proves to me that
Yes, child, even here, even you,
Have abundant peace.
The taste and texture of now.
By Bree Becker, a third culture kid from Rwanda and Kenya who now lives in Oregon, USA.