{"id":574,"date":"2023-03-21T19:28:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T19:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/?p=574"},"modified":"2024-06-04T14:40:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T14:40:47","slug":"wandering-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/?p=574","title":{"rendered":"Wandering journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lost frightened\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A crowd around her\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some just curious others supportive\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Two anxious eyes searching for safety\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t know how I found myself among them\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Asking her in a calm voice hiding a beating heart\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you lost?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a terrified voice, she answered\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, yes, yes\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I took her hand… She surrendered to me\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In my miserable attempts to calm her\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We walk together towards the unknown\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Voices calling me saying the police are the solution\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I nod my head\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My hand will not leave hers until she finds her family\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is your name, little one?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Angel\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who are you here with?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My mother and my aunts\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We walk and walk and she forgets for a while\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then she remembers and goes back to the screaming\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mom, I want mom\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I understand beautiful, we will find her\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We are only meters away from the police\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t want to leave her alone\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*****\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I did not reach my fourth spring when I got lost in the middle of the legs\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was holding my mother’s gown\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To find myself alone\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The police station was my shelter\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The search journey took hours\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They thought they found me, but no way\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That day I wore a mask of courage in the midst of a world of strangers\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

******\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She left my hand towards a forty-year-old woman\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her relatives gathered around me between the questioner and the thankful\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My eyes see no other\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you happy…she answered yes\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I want a goodbye kiss\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blush cheek kiss\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*****\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While holding her hand, she was the one who held mine\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That day, she brought me back home after a decades-long wandering journey<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lost frightened\u00a0\u00a0 A crowd around her\u00a0\u00a0 Some just curious others supportive\u00a0\u00a0 Two anxious eyes searching for safety\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t know how I found myself among them\u00a0\u00a0 Asking her in a calm voice hiding a beating heart\u00a0\u00a0 Are you lost?\u00a0\u00a0 In a terrified voice, she answered\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, yes, yes\u00a0\u00a0 I took her hand… She surrendered to … Continue reading “Wandering journey”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[6],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-verse"],"authors":[{"term_id":6,"user_id":5,"is_guest":0,"slug":"rimtouaghed04","display_name":"Rim Touaghed","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/58e17d1118eae3b2c5859a39cbea129dc24e4ec758d883a03934593e02ba33d1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Touaghed","first_name":"Rim","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=574"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trove.aui.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fppma_author&post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}