Immigrant (Poem)

Immigrant

(A Poem by Nina Crecia)

The atoms of my soul
feel torn
between
two places.

The old familiar melodies
of almost forgotten lyrics
linger
like a whisper
on my lips.

Memories of traditions
and little things that are different,
and me
feeling different
in this place,
too.

The ocean
that lies between
these worlds
carries the weight
of the feeling
of having left behind
my past.

Friends and family,
whose lives
go on without me,
as I cling
to the keepsakes
like a life raft.

The price
of traveling to new shores
comes in the quiet moments,
where the searching beacon
of the lighthouse
falls upon
the silence of sailors,
lost within the waves.

Like a shipwrecked soul,
an outcast of my own past,
on those days,
all the treasures that I’ve found
can’t erase
what it feels like
to be split
between
two worlds,
without a hailing port.

© Nina Crecia, 2020

Image: Pixabay

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NINA CRECIA – is a Graduate Student at California State University Fullerton and future Choral Director. She came to the U.S. in 2009 as an Au Pair, and with the help of her loving host family, stayed to begin her studies in Theater Arts and Music. Today, Nina is happily married and making her home in Southern California.

The inspiration for the poem came during the COVID-19 pandemic when the plans for a trip to Germany had to be canceled. Having left behind one’s country means not being part of those friends’ and family’s everyday life anymore, and it can sometimes be hard for others to imagine what an immigrant had to give up to start a new life somewhere else.

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