Poem: A Dream of Returning

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

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You wander through the silky hill with silky threads flying toward the ocean. You start braiding the threads in three branches like you used to braid hair for your little niece at your grandmother’s home. The hill’s hair waves and touches your ankles and you stand in the middle of the braided hill. The threads glitter like the river behind your home, where you used to swim and flap water with your younger brother. The light is so bright, and you lose your way uphill. You stand among exquisite flying threads and you see a horse leap through thickets and flowers toward you. But when he goes up close, you realize he is not a horse but a childhood friend who used to play badminton with you at the school courtyard when you both were twelves years old. After the summer, he never returned to school, now you know it was because he was busy walking among silky hills and playing ocean. You scream at him: “Why do you ever return?” But it is too late. You are both late for school and the gate turns it back from you.