We are the family.
Scattered.
Reassembled.

Put together not by blood,
but by survival.

By messenger calls.
By a voice you recognize

through static.
We were thrown

to different altitudes,
to the edges of maps,
to time zones
where night never lines up with anyone else’s night.

We are hostages
of war,
of borders,
of bans,
of medical clearances
and lists
where our names
are written by someone else’s hand.
We live in fragments:
some of us — until the next status extension, others — until a test decides
whether the body
is allowed to stay,
others still —
until a short
“I made it”
in a message thread.

Our hugs
are postponed.
Our holidays
exist in the past tense.
Our home
lives in the conditional.

But if you gather us
from these scattered parts —
from permits,
one-way tickets,
unsaid words
and saved numbers — we are still a family.

Not because we are together, But because
we keep holding on.