I talk to people,
the more I talk,
the more I learn,
not about them,
but about myself.
I tell them
my old man's tales,
they don't believe them,
neither did I.
But, when I tell them,
I know they are
not lies.
I feel that
sense of pride,
that I never felt before,
I never felt that
in my land,
but I feel it here.
Halcyon past,
filled with glory,
now only resides
in my old man's story;
I sometimes wonder
if all this is true,
like I think of the myths
of my land,
of talking animals
and flying men.
I am taught to feel
a sense of pride,
of battles won,
of discoveries made;
if only I could erase,
not my past,
but my present,
my name, my colour,
and the prejudices
that come attached.
I live in a foreign land
of hope, for hope,
in hope for bliss,
for me, my family.
I fight daily
with stares, with glares
from strangers,
stranger than strangers
in my land.
It's not a choice,
but a compulsion,
to leave a life
of no dreams,
only to live a life
of no sleep,
and wake up to
my first snowfall,
and the chirps of birds
I have never heard of.
I have lost those nights,
but I have earned
a refuge,
I have earned
one future,
but have lost a few.
I try to fit in,
I try to talk,
the way they do,
the way they are;
I try to forget who I am,
where I come from,
my old man's tales,
his lies, his eyes
as they spark when
he talks of our land.
Our land
is no more mine.
I am no more
of my land's;
a floating cork
in the sea of the world.
They ask me
where I am from,
and I stay quiet.
Not that I am afraid,
or embarrassed,
but I am clueless,
I don't know.
I wake up to the
snowfall here,
never did it snow
in my land,
I hear the birds
as they chirp to me.
The more I hear,
the more I fear,
there is that sense
of gloom;
the cold mornings
I am getting used to,
the new life
I am getting accustomed to,
the new identity
I am losing my old one to.
The mirrors in this land
are strange,
I don't look the same.
Or maybe, I am not
the same anymore;
I sometimes talk,
and wonder
whose voice is that;
The unknown birds,
they are chirping again,
do they also think
about me and wonder,
we have never seen
a man like this before,
never heard
a man like this before.
