Strange taste of home

The faucet drips slow,

steady, a metronome

in a kitchen not mine.

The water hits my tongue—

a sour metallic bite,

a strange sting like cold regret,

a taste that doesn’t fit.

Glass half-full, half-forgotten,

drip, drip, drip

in a sink I don’t recognize,

a city unfamiliar as my own breath,

foreign in the taste of what should be simple.

I swallow hard,

trying to drink home

from a stranger’s pipe.