An International Student’s Homesick Heart

A year and four months.  

A year and four months that I’m doomed to feel homesick.  

I yearn to see my snaggle-toothed chihuahua licking my face as I lay on the carpet scrolling away for art references. I want to feel the way my dad hugs and kisses my forehead after a long day of welding together iron. The way he would cook traditional Salvadorean food like pupusas. I miss the church members that squeezed me so hard that all I could smell was their perfume. I miss the friends that tackled me the moment they saw me again and refused to let go as if I was vapor itself.   

Most of all, I miss my mom. I miss the way she speaks in Spanish. I miss the way she would cook meals and call them “experiments”. I miss the way she would passionately complain about her job. I miss the way she would hold me and give me that reassuring feeling that no matter what, everything would be okay. A little girl in my heart yearns for her. I’m left to only see her through a screen.  

I don’t know if I’ll be able to shake this feeling, as I count the days ‘til I go back.  

My heart is with my home, and my home is my people.