شكرا.
Zikomo.
Her tongue twists
around words in different languages, trying to remember which belongs where on
her map, balancing the pain and relief that come with being somewhere new. It
is not only the words that are lost in her thoughts, but jumbled memories of breath-taking
views, exotic foods and incredible people. She doesn’t know what belongs where
in the world, let alone in her heart.
Each place tears away a
piece of her and fills the hole with something of itself. It breaks her heart and somehow makes her
whole all at once. Each time, she is
reminded: there is nothing else, nothing more than this.
She made the mistake of
looking into his eyes. That was the problem right there. What she saw in them
wasn’t something she was ready for. They looked to deep, and sought too much. He
knew it would never work, but tried to give her his world anyways. That crooked
smile she had grown cherish was enough to suck her in. She became what he
needed her to be. But it went too far.
Skipping from country
to country like a stone across water, she relished the ability to slip into
each one, to adapt and blend in before dancing to the next. Countries never
tried to follow her. She was free.
Some people can love a
person or place with all of themselves…fierce, steady, and loyal. But she loves
too many to belong to just one. The freedom is a drug--it is more than a
craving, it is an insatiable, aching need. Without losing herself in new
waters, winding mountain roads, flavours and the shape of new languages on her
tongue, the fire inside her goes out.
He flew across the
continent for her and still, the day after he left, she had someone new filling
the emptiness he had left. She lost herself in new witticism and intellectual wealth,
happy to be a stranger once again…to have to earn her place. But when new hands
wrapped themselves around her waist and blue eyes looked into hers, she ran
away. Again. Like always.
I miss you flickered
across her computer screen. Deliberate. Casual.
Yo tambien. I miss you,
but not just you.
I miss the beers we
drank, people we met, roads we walked and words we learned…for me, you are a
part of Malawi, a part of Spain, a part of Croatia, Mexico, and Kosovo. But I’m
too in love with all of those places to belong to just one of them.
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