I have so much hair, and a lot that falls out.
The bed I’m sleeping on has white sheets
white pillow and white blanket
and you can very visibly see the
azure, lavender, silver, emerald, sienna strands
of my hair collecting on the bed
and falling to the floor, casually swept
to the corners and edges of my very square
temporary living quarters.
So much hair.

All these strands of myself left around the world.
Strands of hair that contain strands of my DNA
flying all over Peru, Korea, Mexico, Arizona,
Pasadena, Oregon, Irvine, Santa Ana, Anaheim,
Brea, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, China, Cambodia,
Kenya, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles…
You get the idea. Pieces of me are everywhere.

They part so easily from me!
Don’t they miss me?
Why do they fall off, break off
without a second thought?
Why are they in such a hurry to leave me?
Why do they insist on abandoning my follicles
drifting down to tile floors
sticking on bedsheets
getting swept up into airplane vents
falling on foreign streets?
Why do my pieces insist
on being so nomadic,
where does their
unquenchable wanderlust
come from?

This
infuriating
nomadic
gene
must
be
in
every
piece
of
me.

But
Here’s the thing:
This urban gypsy wants a home.

A home lightweight enough
to travel mountains and the Amazon
and flexible enough to nest anywhere—
whether high up in Shanghai skylines
or down low in Seoul’s underground.
A home strong enough to protect and warm
during California earthquakes
or New York blizzards. A home
beautiful, kind, and faithful
that’ll gather me up into its chambers,
let me bury myself into its libraries
filled with books and inventions and movies,
curl up under its blankets,
fall asleep listening to the crooning of its fire
while the winds billow outside.

A home filled with music and laughing.
A home that can adventure with me.
A home that is honest and so
a little messy is ok.
A home where the heart is,
where we pray the language of
dreams in color.
A home that is a Home for God…
and for broken things that need repair
or a warm meal
or just attention.

I’ve always wanted this.
To belong to a Home
who belongs to me too.

A Home where
the multicolored strands of my hair
will stop

leaving

breaking

falling forgotten

to the corners

of a temporary room.

Melaka, Malaysia
10/09/16