I feel close but far, at home and one step out into a familiarity that refuses to recognize me,

Like the glittery flower shop across the road that doesn’t sell anything I can ever like even if i love it

Like the cars all big and small but mostly big that drive past me refusing to hit me knowing I want it?

Like the tables and chairs placed close enough that I know everyone is talking but far enough so that I’m forever wondering what

Like the tongues they speak all so familiar to me, familiar like my own, that refuses to flow as smoothly from me only slipping wildly

Like the smoke that two strangers blow from their cigarettes sitting 5 feet away in the same direction but somehow still my way 

Like the many homes I’ve lived in and left behind, I have had to befriend the city, the streets, the strangers, the vendors 

The walls of my house that refuse to hold my memories so everything is always either falling or fallen 

I can love it tonight, the Kashmiri chai, the cold air, the people who can’t trace their home back to the city because it’s only a little older than me 

I will love it another night with food that is only close to everywhere else, and love that is ink with water, similar but useless

I will stay a winter here and we will pretend this was love, and then you can let my memories fall and break.