Note: This poem summarises my stay in the university I came to for postgrad. The uni had its good, bad and ugly sides. This poem focuses mostly on the bad.
Your crevices are choked with smoke,
with empty cups of tea,
with the constant, lingering smell of petrichor, sweat and dog.
I despise you for your classes full of shit,
for your buds of drama scattered across the AV room,
for materialising that godforsaken coffee machine right out of my memory,
and for tempting me with the bad coffee I love;
It is cheaper—it offends me.
As soon as I arrived at your doorstep, I knew I’d never belong to you.
I sat against the ledge, writing an answer on Hope,
and felt like I could be one of your dysfunctional cells:
I can’t—my home resides in my head;
I'm dysfunctional differently.
I found love lurking on your rooftops,
photographic metaphors for poetry I identify with—
“...like two strangers after a long correspondence, finally meeting.”
Bits of home-that-was found me here and left again,
and for a while,
I was grounded in the corners that were yours but changed, different.
I learned not to be afraid of dogs,
I learned to make Vitruvian books,
I learned to breathe without choking on the cigarettes I keep trying to quit.
I never learned how to be yours.
That puzzle piece that never fit anywhere in the jigsaw is me,
That mime on the stage is me,
That alien taking the last UFO out of this world is me.
*
Es regent stark,
Und ich werde dich vermissen.
