Dufflite Xetaw Poet Free verse

The Geography of Belonging

I have crossed enough borders
to know that countries are only arguments
between one horizon and another,
and passports are maps of suspicion.

I have slept beneath unfamiliar ceilings,
learned the manners of borrowed cities,
drunk coffee whose names I could pronounce
but never quite understood.

Everywhere, civilisation offered me a chair—
provided I knew which fork to use,
when to applaud, when to remain silent,
and how convincingly to pretend I belonged.

But somewhere between the opera houses
and the roadside stalls, between philosophy
and the cheap wisdom of tired men,
I began to suspect the traveller was the destination.

So I returned carrying no souvenirs,
only the uncomfortable knowledge
that home had been following me all along—
and I had mistaken its footsteps for mine.

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