where i am

I.

this place is
motherland

thick with heat
and green
slowly turning to
grey and brown
just like the
land i left

this place is
motherland
but is not home

what is homeland?

II.

i am hungry to know
what it is to own
and feel owned by a place

attached to nothing
but the wind and
heartstrings

III.

i despise sharing this
place with tall,
white-skinned people
on holiday, devouring
temples and beaches
and cheap food,
massages, and manicures

i despise myself for how
similar i am to them,
how much i crave the
same comforts,
how i take part in
destruction
how i am a result of it

IV.

i claim this place
as my heritage

my inheritance is
the gravity of earth,
the flow of water

i float
i drift
i belong nowhere, everywhere

it’s all becoming
the same