Do you remember the first time you saw the ocean, desert dweller? We swept through the high lands and dropped off the mountain range and you could smell it from miles away. It caressed you the way your first lover did. And also like your first lover, it kept on going as soon as and long after you left it.
Foreign tongues are the same way, singing a siren song devoid of anything intelligible and still so full of meaning. You will taste tastes. Smell smells. It will cut you deep and trample all over you and leave you exhausted in bed longing for more.
I remember the first time I stepped out of a metro stop with a bag on my shoulder and the cobblestones beneath my feet. I remember sipping coffee while the sounds of an accordion bounded down the narrow avenue. And I remember, for the first time, discovering an itch that I would never, ever be able to scratch.
