What You Will Put in Your Homebound, Verify-in Travel Bag

Overseas alcohol—to carry one thing new and novel back again to outdated friends—so they can style the transitory activities your text are unsuccessful to repaint.

Clothes—each hole a bit of have on-and-tear that proves it was not a distant desire. It was actual. You had been a portion of it. The smell of highland smoke, the ocean, guacamole, the perfume of a fleeting romance—still lingering in the fibers.

Crafts from the market—great concepts at the time, when you bargained for them with foreign currency. You’ll cling some on your wall and question at some, “Why the hell did I obtain this?” Imagine 1 working day showing them to your escalating kids, hopeful to encourage them to see the planet as you observed it—attainable, your have, open and available.

Postcards—the ones you forgot to ship, now shed to the trip’s finish.

Machete—the one you’ll treasure, but under no circumstances wield like a local.

Things manufactured of glass—the kinds that will arrive in worthless pieces.

Insect eggs—that will hatch, pioneers in a new world—travelers like you, colonizers, international invaders who will conquer and upset nature’s watchful harmony.

Teach tickets, receipts, bus stubs—garbage—but not to you, who made use of them to float from this to that, listed here to there.

Cuban cigars—valuable for political explanations.

Hammocks—where will you hold it in your urban condominium?

Indigenous garbs—realistically, you are going to hardly ever don them in public.

Not just a polo—the polo you wore to Angkor Wat.

Not just jeans—jeans that hiked Pacaya.

Not just shoes—shoes that stood atop Machu Pichu.

Not just a guitar—a guitar however crammed with grains of sand—still smelling of the palm fueled fire—where the intoxicated circle sang Wonderwall elatedly out of tune as the location sun burned the horizon.

Your bag—just a element, a means to the rest of the environment, that carries all the things.

By Luke Armstrong

About the Author

Luke Maguire Armstrong lives in Guatemala directing the humanitarian help organization, Nuestros Ahijados. His book of poetry, iPoems for the Dolphins to Simply click House About (out there for sale on Amazon.com) is specially loved by folks who “don’t examine poetry.” (@lukespartacus)