Other Words for Home

by Jasmine Warga

I wonder if it is exhausting to be a tree. To lose something, year after year, only to trust that it will someday grow back.

Lucky. I am learning how to say it over and over again in English. I am learning how it tastes— sweet with promise and bitter with responsibility.

Hoping, I’m starting to think, might be the bravest thing a person can do.

But Mama’s funny is more like a cat, slinking around, hiding out in corners, brushing up on you by surprise.

hold Mama’s hand as we walk out of the hospital. We are both in a daze, the word bint on our lips, tasting like chocolate, tasting like afternoon mint tea with three extra spoonfuls of sugar, tasting like sunshine. Tasting like hope.

I’ve decided it is very American to have the audacity to claim that three things add up to everything.

I have learned Americans love to say you know and then stop talking. They force you to fill in the hard parts, the things they are not brave enough to say.

It is hard to find a monologue, it is hard to find a place where my favorite actresses are allowed

to speak without a man interrupting them before their full thought has been spoken.

That I cover my head not because I am ashamed forced or hiding. But because I am proud and want to seen as I am.

There is an Arabic proverb that says: She makes you feel like a loaf of freshly baked bread.

It is said about the nicest kindest people. The type of people who help you rise.

I just want to say, and it’s not that I’m saying I understand because I know I don’t, but I do understand what it’s like to not fit in. To have people look at you like you’re different and weird and like that’s somehow a bad thing.

I nod, his words drape over me, feeling like the relief of an umbrella in a storm, the comfort of a soft blanket on a chilly night.

He kisses the top of my head. You belong here. And so do I. The kiss lingers on the top of my head like a ghost like a promise. I belong back home, too. He gives me a smile, one that says, I know. It’s not a contest between here and there. You don’t have to choose.