they hug you, on your birthday
they sing and set your place at the table
with leftover flowers and decorations,
and they hug you and make you feel special.
it’s not that my family doesn’t, per se,
and maybe it’s just the european air,
but the distance of the kinship
does not directly correlate to how i am made to feel. 
she will hug you and try to unnoticingly shove money
into your hand, all while having
the most basic of communication skills between
your english and her german. you will joyfully shout
nein nein nein as you push her hand back into her own pocket
she reminds you of your own grandmother, but younger,
and you nearly cry. you wonder off with your camera
to see the world around you through a lens that is fixed and stable,
that sees meaning in the haybales and woodpiles and dartboard dust,
and all of a sudden the world gets too big.
you focus on the sight of ripening figs, and the curry that lingers
in your mouth with the newly realized cavity,
and you snap a picture. you wonder off and sit
on a handmade bench and stew in the absence of memories
that never got to be. you are noticed. you lie and say you talk
with your friends back home about how it’s your birthday,
when really you just need more time alone. others come,
and you pick back up on the game you were playing,
and focus on strategy instead of your feelings. they are too much.
you realize every moment is skewered meat on a stick
soaked in curry and obligation, and the feelings become
bite-sized and bearable. you don’t share this, because you want to be
misunderstood, because that is your role,
and then you begin to eat your newly-made memories