a tourist

autumn brings with it the hunger pains of home, so far away.

autumn in iowa is hard to explain, but everything explodes in an exclamation mark of color: the end of a sentence - the shouts of summer. autumn in iowa stretches out the sky, lets the colors bleed longer, slants the sunsets into kalidescopes and patches and rays of light. autumn in korea is gnawing familiarity, with some yellows and reds spotting the landscape, but the sky is snuffed out by apartment buildings, and the trees are scrawny and dwarfed by powerlines.

i have been sick with a relentless cough. in the night i sit straight up in bed, while jagged fingernails of hot air claw across the back of my throat. my ribcage seizes, my lungs rattle. i scrunch my eyes shut tightly and wait. and wait. and wait. for the waves to cease crashing inside my body. for sleep to come.

and in that canyon of lost time, i miss home. i miss familiarity and vanilla-scented candles and childhood. i miss how my mom would walk up from the basement, carrying the cardboard box labeled "october" in black permanant marker and how pumpkins and scarecrows would flood every nook and shelf. i miss my cousin's marching band performances on a cold friday night. i miss carving pumpkins with friends. i miss warm zuchinni soup at my aunt and uncle's house. i miss my grandfather as he sports his first pair of tennis shoes, and as his body heals from a close call. in the hunched-over nighttime, i allow myself to feel these things. my defenses are down.

by the first shards of light elbowing through the mountains and into our windows, i accept another morning in korea. i prepare for another full day of teaching, of language classes and new friendships. i walk into an autumn that is not my own, but i will do my best to soak it up. this alternate universe that i live in has a strange beauty, but i hesitate to say "i'm home."