Stateless
Alive
and Kicking
In full immigrant glory
More foreign than before in both my homelands.
[Two empire cities
-centres of strength-
and just one emperor.]
I always thought,
‘My body is My home’
And hence I am equally happy or uncomfortable, as the abode allows,
Unique in my all strangeness, and my beauty
Never apologised for my uniqueness
But recently I want to bear no fruitless thoughts.
So I’ve just ‘done’.
In certain corners of my mind
the world felt smaller
-More places have been pinned with ‘ I don’t live here anymore’ .
And I have counted some more absences
-more people have departed than arrived.
No sweetness of reunion lifts my heart.
It’s been already strange and wonderful this year.
[It sneaked in quietly]
Who knows what comes from here
Where we all go
And even who we’ll be
And I am reminded, by all the violence you see,
That as I am here
-stateless, alive and kicking-
This annual trickle passing
must definitely not go uncelebrated.
The Lent Project 