home

you ask me about home and i tell you
not about mailing addresses
nor stucco walls engulfing
granite countertops
but about moments

about collapsing to my kitchen floor
with laughter
my vision going blurry
as i clutch my stomach
like it will fall with my knees
at any moment

about running until the soles of my feet
burn like the soul of my bosom
with some millennial folk singer
belting through my eardrums

about the silky, slippy dresses
that hug my body almost as sweetly
as the arms of old friends embracing me
every once in a pink moon

about gold bangles on my wrist
ringing like churchbells
as i beg marin avenue’s
speeding tesla drivers to allow me to cross

about hearing my mother’s name
ring through the classroom
during each roll call asking
“Is Anita
Marie
present?”

about lying on the laps of my sisters
asking questions of ‘will all be okay?’
and hearing the rising and falling of a sigh
and a yes filled with as much hope
as a dog waiting under the dinner table

about mornings of glancing to the window
and each tree and rock and blade of grass
is draped in a blanket of golden light
feeling the womb of mother earth

about nights of dancing to reggaton
in dark, sweat-stenched rooms
and of the mornings after
spent making omelets
in those same rooms now reeking of liquor
and unfinished conversations

you ask me about home
and i try to explain
i haven’t ever really belonged
in any particular city or name

i love new york and lima and mexico’s air
zurich and boston and san francisco’s flair
i wander and i wonder but always i’m found
to be foreigner, a bit ‘not from around’

home is not a place, at least not my home
and i think i prefer it that way
as a current rushing through my body
cradling all that i do and all that i may

Copyright © 2025 Anita Marie Julca