No Longer a Foreigner

I am in pain—

not for lack of love,

but for love that cuts both ways.

I miss you

and yet I ache

for all that being with you means.

I am submerged in warmth,

the kind only you give—

a strange cocktail of emotions,

intimate, familiar,

like old songs I never stopped singing

even when no one else heard.

They say I’m different,

but they don’t understand—

my mind sees the things

behind the things.

It gives me more to feel,

more to decode,

and in that flood,

I cannot anchor myself

to what most people call real.

Belonging, belief,

echoes of each other’s truths—

they value these.

But I—

I have too much data

to take comfort in shadows.

I see myself from within

too clearly

to pretend.

Yet with you,

I feel rested,

as if being me

takes no effort—

as if, somehow,

you like me just as I am.

You are the only place

I am not a foreigner.

With you,

there is no translation,

no mask,

no gap to bridge.

And so, for your time,

your presence,

the miracle of your gaze upon me—

I would give anything.

Because I see in you

not just love,

but someone

not too different from me.

And I want to give you

the kind of love

I always wished

someone would have given me.