This is Where I Linger
Belonging is the weight of my name
when it doesn’t stumble
in someone else’s mouth.
It’s not the walls I grew up with,
but the silence between two people
that doesn’t ache.
They told me it’s a place,
a passport, a flag,
a hymn sung in unison.
But maybe it’s the way my feet learn to linger
on soil that doesn’t claim me,
the way my breath steadies
in a place that once made me feel small.
It’s the border I carry in my chest—
how a line on a map
decides whether my story fits.
It’s learning to pack light,
to carry pieces of myself
without ever unfolding them completely.
It’s saying goodbye to a city
that never learned my name.
“Where are you from?” they ask,
and my answer fractures
like light against glass
From? Is it the soil that kissed my feet first,
or the air that taught me
how to hold myself together?
Belonging is what lingers
when I cross the ocean
and don’t look back.
It’s the scent of my mother’s cooking
woven into the fabric of memory,
the sound of her tongue
in a room that doesn’t understand it.
It’s the note I hear in a stranger’s voice
that feels like home,
even though I’ve never been there.
It’s not the symmetry of faces
or the shared language of birth.
Sometimes it’s in the glance of someone
who carries the same ache.
Sometimes it’s in the spaces between words,
where understanding doesn’t need translation.
Home becomes what I carry:
The spices packed into my suitcase.
The lilt of a song I hum without thinking.
The rhythm of footsteps that refuse to falter.
Sometimes belonging is a fight,
the refusal to let go of the soil
that stained my feet.
Other times, it’s the quiet of being seen—
Not fully but enough.
It’s calling myself whole i
n the face of a thousand departures.
planting roots in fractured soil,
daring to stay still
when the world keeps asking me to move.
It’s whispering, I am here.
And knowing that is enough.
What does it mean to belong?
Maybe it’s the way my body
settles into a place,
a person,
a moment—
and doesn’t feel
the need to run.
***
Excerpt from OF DREAMS AND QUIET WARS: WHISPERS I GATHERED IN THE DARK published by Axium Narrative Co. Copyright © 2026 Axium Narrative Co. LTD
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