My toe gently taps the pale ground and all I can see are vacant street lamps in the distance
At least there is light
My skin is pricked with the cool air of nighttime in a frozen desert and I find my hand-me down among the mismatched neighborhood
I step in and secure my safety with a pint-sized copper key plugged into a wooden door
But in my old home, my real home, my father kept us safe. We had no use for locks.

My ventilated apartment holds emptiness.
The long cushioned chair has never felt loved; just unwelcome
It is not the slippery, plastic chair I sat in drawing in the dirt
The eating table, almost the color of my skin, is piled with riches, but it still feels empty
It is not the chipped, poor table that retold stories of family with one glance.
The television displays useless games played miles away by people with foreign tongues
But it is not the jaded soccer ball we kicked around in between meals
They are just items,
In a house,
Masking the emptiness.

The bed, however, held secrets.
Any pillow my soft head has touched holds my stories
The stories of gunshots sounding outside my village like a dream
The gunfire was almost gentle at first. Pop—pop—pop and the world went crazy with fear
Her face, my mother’s terror stricken face got through the fog in my eyes yelling, screaming for me to run
I never did get up until she too was paralyzed, but not by fear, but by the bullet of a man who left his heart of the first raided village
“It was not a game”
My walking legs found me once again and I ran
I ran into a crowd pushing me forward as if I were a fallen leaf pulled by a current
But there was no peace like that leaf would have had, just the continuous pounding of anxious souls trapped in dust and heads
It was over between my family, my village, everything
I was lost.
All I could do was walk in step with the tiered man in front of me.
“It was not a game”

I counted the days
And the steps
One...
Two…
Three…
Until my fear caught up with me.
I didn't know what I was doing or where I was going but faith was holding my hand, pulling me along reminding me, I will be okay

But I am not okay
I am alone, restarting my life.
I thought someone would be here
She said that more than 4000 refugees have found their way to Idaho but she didn't tell me how to find them.
My aunt says I can find the sun when the sky is dark, but she is wrong. I can’t see what isn't there

I don’t know if America is my real home
I don’t know if my safety will be evoked like it was in Africa
But I do know as long as my hope burns brighter than the sun and my family is sleeping soundlessly up in the stars,
I will make it through the night.