NAMESAKE

God, my home away from home
Can I call it that? Claim that, my namesake
I’ve spilled no blood in that distant soil yet
I feel it’s breathing within me, it’s burning so
Hot as my homeland, the many within
Licking lapping flames that have bayed
At my feet since birth: this home, that home,
So alike in brevity sake—
My home is burning.
My home is burning.
My home is burning.
I can feel myself smoldering with it.
Yet yet yet, I am ashamed for grieving
What is not mine to grieve.

W. Vulgare is a Southeast Asian & queer writer undergoing literature study at the University of California Santa Cruz. They have works issued in college publications at West Valley College, as well as through Children's Health Council in Palo Alto, CA. They are currently a poetry editor for Nonbinary Review under Zoetic Press.