On most days,
you can find me in the 02138
working away;
taking a walk at lunchtime;
listening to the river flow,
the people come and go,
the city’s wild geese growl.
This land is not my native land,
but I’ve grown enough love
to call it home. Home: a memory
carved and buried deep inside me,
not unlike the aftermath of a surgery
splitting one wide open: examined, explored, and altered,
in one way or another,
before being sewn back altogether.
We are those sewn-back identities
immersed into a society of multi-way split,
taking part and taking apart,
looking for ourselves while looking for love,
calling it by different names,
seeking someone who is unlike us
and yet is exactly us
in the things that we deem matter the most
to the happiness that is meant to last longer
than the time it takes to start everything over.
Lily Thanh 