I'm split
Into two
One understands
The other confused
What am I feeling?
Why?
Doesn't make sense
Though I wasn't
Born here
This is home
Nowhere else
Israel notwithstanding
I couldn't live there
My family left
The USSR
For a better life
A better future
For me
I've got it
Where the mystery lies
Where I'm a half
Where?
Not where
But when
When I watch
Russian TV
The concerts
The songs
About "Rodina"
Homeland
They all live
Happily in the country
Of their birth
And I find myself
Feeling saddened
To tears sometimes
Why couldn't it have been
That way for us
Don't get me wrong
I do not want to go back
I do not want to live there
This half of me
Just sometimes wonders
What could have been
If they weren't anti-Semitic
If the USSR didn't fall
Or even if it did
What would life be like?
Where am I from?
I get that question a lot
Amazingly, I always pause
Before giving an answer
I was born when
The country was still
The mighty USSR
I, we, left that way
In '89
1991- all of it came crashing down
Countries
Republics were formed
And where I was born
Became a separate country
Belarus or Belorussia
Aka White Russia
So when asked
Where am I from?
To save them the
Lengthy explanation
I say:
"I'm from the USSR but the country is
Belarus"
Perhaps I feel
This half
Because of so many memories
I remember
A ton from my first 6 years
On this earth
In Slutsk and Bobruisk
Belarus respectively
Perhaps if someday
I will go see
Visit the place of my origin
I can reconcile
My 2 halves
Until then
All I can do
Is dream
And wonder
The "what-if's"
YOU ARE READING
Like Calls To Like (Book 2)
PoetryThis is my second poetry book. Book 1 is published on Amazon.com and is called "Out of the Abyss". This collection of poems shows my life at a time when everything was going well and then it wasn't. A lot happened between 2009 and 2012. Every book...
