Pieces of Me

Shoulders drop, deep exhale.
No one knows who I am here.
But I swear the wind just whispered
“Stay a little.”

So I follow the hand that gently guides me from behind,
An invisible touch
but powerful in helping me find
exactly where I am meant to be.

My heart is the only map
I need here.

Open. Many roadways,

But nothing to fear.

Instead, I skip to the beat of the sun,
Or the sway of the moon’s midnight hum.

I spill my dreams
to other wanderers on the street,
‘Cos their ears bear no judgment,
and not a secret do their lips leak.

Funny how sometimes it’s in these strange lands
that I feel more at home
than at family reunions,
or in the city in which I’ve grown.

Foreign soil and sands welcome me
as if I had treaded on them long ago,
felt their grains between my toes.
But somehow, I forgot over time,
that these places were once mine

That this is where I belong,
Singing my own song,
Under neither a canopy or roof,
But a wide open sky
with endless spotlights
- flickering “fly, fly fly!”

Voices sneaking under my skin,
A collective mix of all the places I have been…

They are tunes that will never die
Even after every goodbye,
something of each city-
even if just a tiny part-
settles deep within my heart.

Each journey- another piece,
leading me back to the start.
                                         © Tasleem