Foreign

I know that very far from here there are people who know my name

And my favorite place to get coffee

People who love me

People who miss me 

I know

But I'm here in this place with people whose faces look a little too much like mine that 

Blur together with the same inaudible language

Songs to sing and jokes to tell and movies to quote

Shared memories I have arrived too late for. reasons to smile, reasons to cry,

 That I do not understand

All the same

And they do not know my name

Or the fact that there is an unbearable pressure at the back of my throat 

Built up by all the words I know, that I have spent 20 years learning

Perfecting, elevating, twisting and bending so that they may find relevance in the world

And still yet, here, if they should slip through the crack in 

T H E Y  D O N ' T  U N D E R S T A N D  Y O U 

I watch them fall. fall, falling to the floor 

Like paper thin leaves 

And I am left without a name once again