Between Worlds

She carries two passports in her heart, Neither one quite home. In the land where she first drew breath, They ask where she’s really from.

Her tongue stumbles on the language Her parents spoke in whispers, While the words that flow like water Mark her as other, always other.

At family gatherings across the ocean, Aunts pinch her cheeks and sigh— “You’ve become so foreign, little one, So distant from our sky.”

But she is not half of anything. She is not torn or broken. She is the bridge between two shores, The song in two tongues spoken.

In her veins run rivers That have never met on maps, In her dreams dance rhythms From both her mother’s and father’s laps.

She belongs to morning prayers And midnight birthday candles, To spices that burn the tongue And stories only she handles.

Let them call her foreigner— She knows a deeper truth: Home is not a place on earth But the wholeness of her youth.

She is the keeper of two histories, The guardian of two names, And in her singular existence Burns a thousand ancestor flames.

She belongs to herself completely, To the space between the known, Where borders blur to nothing And she stands, beautifully, alone.