home, coming

these last few months in japan, i’ve
felt what i can only describe as

homesick,
[adj]: longing for home during
a period of absence from it –

an unusual feeling for me,
a y e a r n i n g in my heart
unraveling like a spool of thread,

i just want to go home.

wrestling with the decision
that feels more like an inevitability
do i stay or do i go?

i’ve knocked on a thousand doors,
but the only one open is the one
behind me –

because what is life and time
but linear?

and if i leave it feels like it will be
for f o r e v e r

(to which my brother in law informs me,
you aren’t really a forever kind of girl).

now i’m sitting in an airport in las vegas
waiting for my final flight back
to albuquerque, after being in
the state of in-between:
c a l i f o r n i a ,

i’ve left japan.

the realization sharp like the crunch
of a pickled plum, sour.

people ask me how i feel,
at first i said i felt nothing.

but that’s not it.
it’s an absence

but its not
n o t h i n g

its what i’ve always felt
everywhere i go, whatever i’m doing
& whoever i’m with

just a little
r e s t l e s s,

& longing:
for what?

for all the places i’ve been
and all the places i’ve yet to go,

people i’ve loved and people
i’ve never met

memories that b l u r like
faded black & white photos
and all the dreams coming into focus

and what i feel is hiraeth

from the welsh:
hir: in progress –
something that shall be
renewed or remembered

&

aeth: pain, grief, and earnest
e x p e c t a t i o n (s)

longing for a place to which a person
cannot return or a home that never was
(a loss that cannot be defined)

and what i feel is natsukashii
懐かしいー

from the japanese verb:
natsuku 懐く：to become familiar with

into an い adjective:
i want to get used to it, i want to keep it,
evoking memory and taking you
back to that m o m e n t

joy, gratitude, acknowledgment for the past
rather than a longing to return,
a sense of connection
& togetherness.

and really some things, like these words
cannot be translated completely
they just have to be
felt.

the thing is i was born with a
b R o K e N heart –

pieces scattered around the world
in different places with all kinds
of people, some i’ve found
and some left to seek;

always been a piece of my heart
in japan, it stays there and
sometimes i go and visit –

but for now, i’m returning to the
piece(s) i’ve left here.

blessed to settle into
a new, but familiar moment
for a time being.

(&if you turn around,
you will see
the future) –