will become a pessimist                            eventually
trying to find what’s lost                           will ransack the house
the overstayed visa                                     the recipe book
the birth certificate                                     the first passport
nowhere                                                        to be found
the immigrant                                             will travel
drive with the windows down                  stop at the rest stops
always in search                                          trying to find more
of what made you leave                             because nothing can satisfy
the first time around                                  there is something that pushed you out
this is the horrible secret                           this is the terrible secret
the immigrant always an immigrant       there is no returning

Copyright © 2022 by Aline Mello. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 19, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“I wrote this poem while looking for my first passport and running into mountains of papers and documents that I know, as an immigrant, I need to have saved. I am really interested in the contracts people unknowingly enter into when they migrate from one country to another. In this poem, I explore this one cycle a migrant enters into: when they choose this country; when they choose to stay without official permission; and when they question where home and belonging are, and if that can ever be found again.”
—Aline Mello