Codified

I think the problem is that I can’t keep things separated. I get mixed up. I am messy.

Some things are permanently mistranslated. Whenever I tell my family that the plane has landed again in Muscat, both "Tony" and "Carmela" tell me something to the effect of, “You are welcome.”

I think, “I damn well better be or where the heck else am I gunna sleep?” I know that they mean welcome home, but all the same it sounds like a response to “thanks”.

Or like when the most gutsy of my three bus drivers (the jury is still out on which one exactly) texts me “I need have picnic with you any day like,” picnic means vacation. As in How you like this picnic? Or you take picnic in Salalah?

And adapted means something like “getting along with”. “How adapted your studies... Adapted Dubai?”

“Ly-esh achoo achoo?”
“Bes-beb kut-ta”
“Heh?”
“Bes-beb kut-ta”
“You a cat?”
“No, nevermind…”

What if I can never come home.

What if I’ve misplaced myself too far now, walked too many steps down and over. I’m not trying to sound melodramatic. What the hell are you supposed to think when the “foreign” stops feeling foreign, at least in shock-value.

Lately I have just had too much to say to speak. I roll my thoughts instead of folding them, this way they fit in my suitcase. And I just keep stuffing. And my mouth can’t articulate kul ef-kar.

Ow aye-ya ef-kar for that matter.

I’ve started to think about wood. About that green so dark it’s almost black. I’ve started to think about warm blankets and leather and being held and quiet.