The Country I Carry

I left places without leaving them.

They travelled inside my voice, inside the food I miss, inside the way my family says love without saying it.

A country is not only land.

It is a grandmother’s phrase that cannot be translated.

It is music heard from another room. It is anger, pride, memory, and the strange ache of returning somewhere that continued without you.

Wherever I live, I carry more than one map.