somewhere between
youth and less-young,
somewhere during these
last few turns around the sun,
somewhere along
dark stretches of highway,
somewhere under
shadows of looming buildings,
somewhere in the middle
of someone else’s nowhere,
i began to thirst for
sky and open space,
for distance from the cities
where i once felt found and
where i now feel adrift and anxious,
for a chance to make mine
the places that i never thought to go
because of my skin and my love,
for an attempt at laying
beneath those starry skies made
invisible by our streetlights,
to be able to look reverently
upon stolen land,
to honor stolen history,
to heal the wounds opened
by disconnection from earth,
to feel a part of the darkness, the quiet,
to become a conduit
to another kind of life,
something i can’t yet
understand but which
my hands can’t
help grasping after.
title from machine.
narinda heng 