you have trickled your way through all my pathways and shores

and i have never been so grateful for a river before

i have invited you into my privacy, a party with one name on the guest list

between us a home has been built, with the welcome mat placed and the key kissed

and i will stay there

forever

today i cried in the shower.

not because it is the only place i can cry, where the faucet rain blends in with tears - but because it hits me almost anywhere.

i am shampooing my hair when i realize i may never hold you the same again. i am rinsing away body wash when your laugh is spinning like a record with a broken needle in my head. and i am crying underneath the shower head when know i cannot call you tonight and tell you about my day.

i have tied knots inside myself in hopes they will absorb the tension. instead, they add to it. i tie a new one every time i think about you.

my eyes have grown tired of most things. they build bigger bags for themselves to be held in. unfortunately, my heart cannot do the same.

she is ripping through the seams, she fears. she is being tugged by tangled strings.

today i cried in the shower.

not because it is the place i don’t have to admit it, where the only thing that differs a tear from a drop is the salt - but because it hits me almost anywhere.

as i am drying the water away - off my legs and off my cheeks - i begin to untie.

Home isn't something with a clear image.

Home takes it root in many places, just like me.

see, Home can mean Texas, the first land to ever catch my eye, to ever catch me when I attempted to walk for the first time

where the air was as dry as the jokes my grandpa would make, where my grandpa took his last breaths

see, Home can mean Kenya, where in place of our backyard was a lush jungle

and if you left the windows open, you could expect some uninvited dinner guests

See, Home can mean Pakistan where rosewater runs through everyone’s blood

where turmeric and cardamom were the cure for everything, where the only things that needed curing were physical ailments

and though I’ve been just once, it’s where my culture resides

see Home can mean Vancouver, where infancy came to an end and the storm that was everything after started

where I learned what real friendship is, what it feels like to taste rain on a late spring evening

and see home, well, home can mean you.