The Immigrant

I’ve always known lands to be unstable

and rootless as that of water lilies

walking with tippies and a three piece

searching for that for which I have no recollection

I am the orphan who could not remember the stories of his father

The percussionist who seamlessly transitions between rhythmic compilations

with no recollection of how those compositions were birthed,

I become wildly staccato

I tried to build homes in stable lands,

but these stable hands produce structures weaker

than that of a table stand.

the tales that stand more piercing are those

that piece together the journey of a lonely traveler,

forever piecing together the memories of when he existed,

remembering to remember things that today are foreign … distant

things like…

the folds in the crevices of his cheeks,

followed by a burst of air being exhaled,

exposing his pearls, leading him to smile.

things like…

running endlessly as if there were no tomorrow,

and today was the continuation of yesterday,

and the days where in love with each other.

that they wove intimate conversations of poetic love

i can remember these things as if they were molasses,

slowly thinned upon the lapses of time,

leaving sweet aftertaste as that relax the mind

my mind finds time to be still and contemplate the sweetness

of past memories

and in regards to friends…

well… they can only narrate the fragmented stories,

that store the essence of my being, which is always fleeting,

because consistency is a bleeding vein that awakens reflection,

and reflection serves nothing more but to provoke tension,

reconstructing fragments that gain their beauty only in the passing

i am but a wind that makes speak the wind-chimes,

awakening the monotonous word rhymes,

flowing with times,

yet far from engraving memorial signs,

for i am

only in the passing,

my past aligns my present,

haunting with memories of when i existed in time,

musings of when i made my home in rhymes,

etched in intricate word schemes that danced between the lines

my memories now fading with every moment

once valuable now worth less than a pair of dimes

I dropped dimes off the dome

and i danced in flat lines,

that left my universe speechless like deaf mines

calling me to a place where i was at home as the abstract line.

a place where i belonged to a texture of my own,

where i was not the immigrant,

but the son of moments lived without regrets.