Neither here nor there, more colloquially known as
The phum and the junabot, wedged in

It’s that feeling when you wake up
Coated in a red glow, the curtains at Smiley’s making your room a darkroom
To develop strange, floating memories of a life
You still don’t understand although
You’ve been here ages.

The clench in your gut that jolts
When your taxi driver calls
Telling you he’s waiting, a sign
He is ready to chaperone you.
He’s the Charon to your Soul
Across the River Styx
To Hades.

Sorry,
I mean,
Your site.

You postpone a few hours, because it’s easy
“I’m a little sick please wait”
You muster out in your Khmer
Sounding half-baby, half-overgrown baby.

You want time to order food so you make time
You want time to shower and shave so you do
You want time to contemplate life’s existence
But you don’t
And shouldn’t
Not now, in your most vulnerable state between the city
And the junabot.

The transition between
Knowing while being unknown
To the unknown while being known
A paradox of familiarity with
The westernisms of the city
Versus the anonymity that the countless foreign bodies
Offer you here
Versus the traditions of a culture
So different (but so familiar?)
In a place where
Every sneeze is noted
And every step is counted
And every [insert literally anything] is remarked upon
The privacy of ourselves
Foregone in the sacrifices we make
In a place that is and is not
Our home.

Mildly panicking
Packing up your clothes and
Piling up to go boxes and delivery orders next to
The mountain that is
The garbage can
Swallowed by
Styrofoam
And
Plastic
And
Ants.

Are you slightly hungover?
Or is it the cheese?

Your host family calls
Or they don’t
You let them know either way
You’re on your way!
And yes, everything has been sooooo
sabay!

Food is delivered
Devoured
A shower as baptism
The air-conditioning your mother’s breath
On a spoonful of boiling Spaghetti-O’s

I would kill for some Spaghetti-O’s.

You leave saying bye to the hotel staff who has seen the best
And worst of
Almost every volunteer
Surely
To meet your tour guide to the junabot
To a life that seems like a dream amidst
The city lights
And the Burger King’s
And the
Options.

Back to a place where the steam
Of rainy season clears
Your pores of the dirt dry season caked in,
And the rice that never ends
And the children never tire of
Saying hello hello hello
Whatsyournamemynameis

The city blurs into village into construction
Into village
Into cows and two-lane highways and into
Your phum
Your home

You forget this is your home in the moments between
Quesadillas
And pizza
And life and motion and
Comforts

But this is where you belong
Remember why you left your home
Remember why you left your family
Remember where you wanted to go
Amidst papers and doctors and bureaucracy and recruiters and explanations and money and saying goodbye and saying hello and tears and fears and taking leaps
And go there

Even if it’s not what we wanted or expected
We took a chance and we
Got where we are because
We wanted something
And we got it.