This city offers pavement / coffee machines I break / humans who laugh at nets / and one woman who says my name / like it's a real thing
I want to bring home somewhere / not back / not forward / just here / in the spaces between / where I crush cardamom / and people line up / for something I made
Is that allowed / for an orc like me / to choose the in-between / to build instead of return / to want belonging / without giving up / the smoke-smell / the language / the stones
I don't know / but I'm trying anyway
I gaze at the words.
They're terrible poetry. Clumsy. Too earnest. The kind of thing that should stay private in notebooks that never see daylight.
But they're true.
All of it.
The wanting. The uncertainty. The desperate hope that I can build something here that matters. That I can be both orc and city-dweller. That I can belong without erasing the parts of me that came before.
Mrs. Kowalski knocks on the doorframe. I didn't hear her approach.
"You okay?" she asks.
I close the notebook. "Yeah. Just thinking."
"About the councilwoman thing?"
News travels fast in this building apparently.
"Among other things."
She comes in. Sits on the edge of my bed. The mattress dips under her weight.
"You know what I think?" she says.
"What?"
"I think people like Blair are scared of what they don't understand. And instead of doing the work to understand, they try to make the unfamiliar go away. It's easier. Safer. Doesn't require changing their worldview."
I turn to face her. "How do you fight that?"
"You don't fight it. You just keep existing. Keep being undeniably real. Keep making your coffee and your connections and your ridiculous nets." She pats my knee. "Eventually peoplerealize that fear costs more than understanding. But it takes time."
"What if time runs out?"
"Then you adapt. You find another way. You keep going." She stands. Heads for the door. Pauses. "But I don't think you'll have to. I've seen the way that girl looks at you."
"Lacy?"
"No, the other girl you make special coffee for." She rolls her eyes. "Yes, Lacy. She's not going to let some politician erase you from her shop. Or her life."
She leaves before I can process that.
I open the notebook again.
Read the poem one more time.
Then I add a final line.
Maybe home is where someone fights for you to stay.
