The sky here is wider
but less familiar.
Even the wind speaks a language
I do not fully understand.

Streets stretch like questions
I haven't yet answered.
Faces pass,
kind but unknown,
like books I've never read.

I carry the scent of old rain
from somewhere else,
a name they do not pronounce
the way I remember it.

At night,
memories come like waves,
not to drown me,
but to remind me
where I began.

Home is not always a place.
Sometimes it is a voice,
a meal,
a shadow that knows your shape.

And though I walk forward,
every step away
is also a quiet echo
of where I belong.