like the family
I need documents to stay here
lose them and I lose my place
this is the right place, right?
this is where I’m supposed to be?
Rumi thinks your country
is where you’re headed
not where you are
Tomás says we never arrive
we’re smuggled in the back of a truck
riding anonymous in the dark
thru the middle of a place
that doesn’t want us
wants only pieces of us
we come in pieces
pottery shards
temple fragments
stone bits
imagining blood
in different cities
cities of us
abandoned
we didn’t die
we hid
what was remembered
wasn’t put down
on rock
on paper
so that it could be smashed
so that it could be burned
I became unrecognizable
dulled easily in the meanwhile
between peaks and valleys
already I’m from a people so small
we might be overlooked
when the end comes
it’s hard prying us open
but there are ways to make us talk
I thought my generation
escaped silence
silence came back for me
severed me from a tongue
that once spoke like a mirror
revealed exits
when I got quiet
I opened a door onto
a maze of space
I drifted
hurting myself
banging into unseen borders
I’m from folks who
used to know their way around
the universe
at the very least
they knew people
who knew people
who knew the way
the only thing I could do
was make a chain
a line of letters
to anchor me
back to my vessel
I’m still adrift
but it’s a new floating
a purpose whispering behind it
cycle-breaking
avoiding ends
disguised as paths
I got 9 years
and about 6 months
left to explore
Previously published in Vandal.
Image Credits: Pottery Shards by Gary Cycles
