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The life of an immigrant is a life without an anchor. We are neither here nor there. Stuck in some wormhole between two parallel universes, we don’t know which way to turn. We embrace our new lives but it feels like a betrayal. We yearn to return and that too feels wrong. We stand with a foot in two different boats, both of them slowly pulling apart. Our thighs will rip, there will be unbearable pain, but choosing one over the other is out of the question.

There are doubts we don’t speak of aloud, even to those who share our insecurities. We let the new winds seep in. They leave their mark on our skin and when we go back to the land we still call home, it feels a bit different, a bit unfamiliar. We are desperate to hold on, clinging to the silver strands of nostalgia that strengthen with each passing memory.

And so when we return to our new houses, we feel estranged. Doomed to lie awake every night in our soft beds and in our better lives, we imagine walking down the roads we once knew so well. Sleep never comes easy. It is the price we pay for leaving a home to find another.

your oasis lies
past these sands, but what of the
blooming fields back home?

Another haibun from Rahul:

Castle