This text was inspired by Rupi Kaur, whose style I tried to imitate, after I read her first book, The milk and Honey and saw her live in Seattle. – Maender

The Crossing

One day
My grandfather took me apart
He told me
You went to America and came back
I knew you would leave again
I wish I had answered back then
That I would never forget him nor them
That they would remain islands
Floating on my distant heart

You were born to travel
And never stay in one place
they told to me

She was a traveler herself
She had the dream
Of conquering the world
Readying her sails, while mine were
already catching wind

But it is too easy
to lose sight of each other
When an entire horizon separates us

Sailors know that
There are only two times
They really enjoy
Leaving
And arriving
Losing sight of land
And being the first to catch it again

The land I left was my home
I gave it away for a new world
A world of color
A world of joy

And sometimes
A world of emptiness

It is never easy
To start everything from
The beginning again

They never told me I was too far
They were free
I was free

Smiles
Forgotten in the wind
Promises
That we will never hold

And so it all started
A new continent
A new work
A new place

New friends to meet
New food to try
New mountains to climb
New seas to sail

And sometimes
a bitterness that does not fade

The anchor

I told them
I will come back
I am an explorer

But what I discovered here
Lays softly under the surface of the water
Where my boat floats
And the anchor goes a little bit deeper
In the sand
At every new discovery At every new smile

I wanted to go back
Crossing oceans
Proving myself that I was strong enough
To face the world
In the mirror of the wild

Oceans are the last wilderness
That man is too small
To colonize and completely alter

You can spend days
At sea
Without seeing anyone
But whales
And dolphins
And the reflection of your soul On the dancing waves

Sometimes
I wonder
If I ever want to raise the anchor
If rather
I would not prefer
Staying here
Swimming everyday
And bringing more people to my boat

And I am afraid
Because there are storms in the world
That you cannot control

I do not know if any
Will ever reap the anchor off
And take me and my boat
Far away at sea

I want to see this land
To learn how to like it
As much as the land I left

The hope

When I still knew nobody
You came to me and smiled
You asked me who I was
And I do not remember what I answered

What I was looking at
Was a smile that would not fade
Greater than the horizon
Of any open sea

When I was talking
With people across the world
I remember saying
I have met someone
Who has a heart
Brighter than any sunrise
I have experienced

One afternoon
We spent time
Pushing each other in the water
I wanted to kiss you then

We told each other stories
And I wanted to kiss you even more

I was scared

That our distant cultures
Would always stand between us

I took you skiing
You made me smile

I discovered a woman
Ready to try as hard as she could
Eager to learn
Eager to live fully

A drop of folly
In a world that has raised me
Too seriously

Deep in my heart
My heart knew what it wanted

It wanted to share these differences
It wanted to share these distant cultures
Thrive on them
Grow from them

There is no other world that matters
But the one we build for ourselves

And my heart broke free
It asked you
To dance under the sun
To lie under the stars
To kiss under the trees

I wanted to bring you on my boat
And if one day I raise the anchor
Take you with me
Wherever you want to go

The wounds

We all have wounds
And sometimes we need the scar
To be strong enough

This scar I wanted to kiss
This scar I could not erase
Even when we lied naked
Under the stars
Even when your feet were around mine

I kept this hope that
One day
I would see the whole of you
Like I wanted you to see the whole of me

We made love we fought

We broke up

But we healed together again

Together                          we are learning
How to soften                             our scars
Make them                                 disappear
In each other’s                                   gaze

And I secretly keep the hope that
One day
There will be an entire garden
A garden we would create for ourselves
That would connect our wounds
And bound them stronger

Together

The love

Whistler
  Seattle
    Hidden Lake
      Stevens Pass
        San Francisco
          Monterey
            Big Sur
              Orlando
                Miami
                  Bern
                    Zermatt

Together
We became
Travelers of the world
Lovers

And I cannot wait
To see
What the future has in store
For us