She stares at her large suitcase.

A weary reminder of the places she has moved, moves, is moving.

Home is a place no one likes to say goodbye to, but choice is a thing not everyone has.

Away is not a status desired permanently, but abroad is the only option when staying means her demise.

It is a matter of rocks and hard places. And hard backs that carry suitcases like hers and carry children to board planes, through tunnels, across rivers and oceans.

Out of poverty and out of danger.

The arms that receive them at their destinations are sometimes receptive but sometimes resentful.

Sometimes those arms are draped in stars, the stars, sometimes spangled in banners, explicitly calling for the removal

of people who have just removed themselves from other places.

Before she arrived in that neighborhood, the neighbors used to bake apple pies for every newcomer. When she waved, they handed her a slice of vexation.

Where difference once made them curious, they now wrinkled their noses at her variance. Her lack

of uniformity made them weary.

She could not be just like them because she was not them, but what she could be was good.

She could show them that she was good, better than her distinctive appearance could.

She is good.

For more than her hands and muscle, she is good for her brain, too.

The oxygen she exhales gets circulated, too, and that alone should be deserving of apple pie.

And yet, it was not. Suspicious eyes are harder to charm than curious ones.

She doesn’t bid farewell.

She picks up her suitcase. On to the next. In search of home, which is nowhere now.

But she must just keep moving.