don’t turn away 

i did that once and lost a country 
and then lost the language
to name the loss


i don’t have a name,
just a lot of empty places on a map

and everything that has happened to me
has happened inside my own head

i waited for someone to show up and tell 
me i was forgiven 
but i made myself impossible to find
and then i made myself impossible

and of course the war never ends for people like us.

whatever was lost is gone for good this time.

i know because they didn’t show up in even the good dreams.

i’ve been so many people;
forgive me.

if i can’t look you in the eye 
it’s because i’m scared you’ll see in me
only what’s missing. 

i know every border is made up of nothing but hands
that take and take 
until you’re not the same person
you were on the other side

and i know that land can be sick with amnesia
until the only thing inherited 
is the
forgetting.

(i belong to that failing memory,
and all the names i forget
are mine.)

(i belong to the words that escape me
in both languages.