Jimin Jun

Latitude: Unknown.

Longitude: Unknown.

There is no pin

I can drop on a map.

Yet, I know exactly

how to return.

It sounds like waves 

breaking against the shore

before anyone else is awake. 

 

It smells like salt 

carried inland

by the winter wind. 

It feels like sunlight 

scattered across the water, 

turning every wave

into something briefly golden.

Every New Year's morning, 

I find myself there. 

Not always in the same place,

but in the same feeling.

Waves leave. 

Waves return. 

Again. 

Again.

Again. 

They never carry a map. 

Yet, they always know 

where to return. 

The sea belongs 

to no country. 

It reaches every shore 

without asking

where one border ends 

and another begins. 

Perhaps I have been searching 

for belonging 

as if it were an address. 

But there is no coordinate

for the feeling

that keeps calling me back.

Latitude: still unknown. 

Longitude: still unknown. 

I kept looking

for a destination.

The waves knew 

before I did.