Hometown

It’s all so yellow

people say about my hometown.

Strange to call it hometown.

Strange,

in the way it is strange to have a heart finally heal,

to feel the ache—which sits perched in the chest like a grotesque bird—

one day flutter faintly

one day lose its permanence.

Strange to call it hometown,

though it really is all so yellow.

Every cobbled corner,

every gentle twinkle on the water.

Even the moon

on certain nights in March—

and September plums, floating like little moons themselves.

All so yellow,

though for a while it is merely

a speck of heartbreak on the map,

a litany of sorrows.

Tourists chase the golden hue,

walk straight past the things I have built,

past the ruins, oblivious to all that was left to wilt.

There—on the corner, our coffee shop with pineapple tea.

I think I get it now, as you bend down to kiss my knee,

how one forgets to dream,

and drowns, and disappears into another.

There—in the cavernous metro station at 9 pm,

pretending to walk a tightrope on the tiles,

humming to a stranger's music—never knowing the lines.

Giddy and glowing and always—it seems—on my way to you.

There—at every turn,

a place someone has left behind.

There—in every car window,

a ghostly reflection, alone and undefined.

So I run,

refuse to call it home, sleep on all floors and couches

as long as they’re not mine,

cry on warmer continents, search for a sign,

carry an exit strategy in every coat pocket,

a ticket too.

Maybe this is when hometown becomes—

not a city, but a mother?

When love becomes not just warm, but unconditional?

Welcomes me back,

even after curse words and silent treatments and slammed doors.

Tells me—

you can be tangled all your life, if you want.

I’ll still bring you cough drops and honey with your tea.

All that you carry—I’ll hold.

I have room for more than you think,

for old love and for new.

So I listen, get off the train.

Let the city become home,

let it colour me too.

The new love laughs with his entire body,

knows every street by name,

has favourite cocktails and times of day.

The new love talks about the world, but never in a way that makes me feel abandoned.

I buy tulips on Tuesday afternoons,

become a regular at the place with the neon sign,

they love me there,

two for one on all glasses of wine.

It’s all so yellow,

people say about my hometown.

You remind me of the sun,

the new love says as we sit by the sea.

Strange to call it hometown.

Strange to have a heart finally heal.