Liminality is living between two inversely related worlds

Where cultures and the clashes of civilizations collide in me,

Where the gun and the sword attempt to clash into each other

but leave dust in the wake

 

I am that dust

 

swayed by the winds of both cultures but unguided by either,

Where storms build from the pushes and pulls of winded cultures

 

Accompanying me are other dust particles,

created long before my existence

They are the light to my survival,

 

Nagina, Mawloda, arslan

They are anything but my siblings, because siblings are not enough to describe, to pay back, the debt of gratitude I owe them,

Sacrificing the pieces of both worlds, each arm in another while trying to hold them together so I can walk the path made of their bodies

 

I became the place of liminality, connecting both my mother and my father to this new underworld

 

Where poets and diplomats become TJ Maxx workers and parking lot cashiers

Yes those are my parents

 

Continuing as refugees means creating a bridge that doesn’t begin to connect both worlds,

Losing one language and being fluent another your first words were not in

 

It means not being able to articulate the word diplomat from Uzbek to English,  so my dad was just a government worker for the first 20 years of my existence,

until I met his coworker his summer

The Ambassador of Afghanistan to Tajikistan

 

It means being nostalgic for a home you never grew up in, rooted in the imagery of your parents high schools, towns and cities, you never set foot in

 

It means never knowing about your parents first crushes, or the lessons they can’t teach you because the only lesson that applies here is that education is your path now

 

It means following your parents footsteps to pick up up the guilt and place then on your shoulders of shedding sacrifices your parents are so willingly give

By working more than 9 to 5 hour days that were promised by the American dream

 

It means living opportunities of a life more fulfilling that you can’t extend to them let alone begin to describe to them

 

Because talking always seems like a phone conversation of breaking connections

Constantly losing part of your sentences to the static made up of different languages

 

It also means seeing your dad’s brave face storming through the daily tasks that try to beat him every single day

only to show up to your graduation with teary eyes as you     simply     cross the stage

 

It means learning the letters of your language step by step, letter by letter,  so your mother’s poetry doesn’t fall on deaf ears anymore

 

It’s a life more fulfilled because it is a life more felt, of many emotions, trials, and challenges

It’s also a life filled with tiny whispers of your mother trying to choose your life partner,

It means the toughest of battles but the sweetest of nectars.