A Flight Home

I booked my flight to return to my home country
where my support system, friends and family live. 
Somehow I feel like I've been avoiding this, 
because I'm somehow uncomfortable or nervous 
about them seeing me after another year, 
same job, same life, but a little older, a little fatter,
a lot sadder and a bit distant in the connection
between my mind and my body. 

These last two years has given much in terms of emotion,
but mostly just gray hairs, wrinkles that retinol can't fix
and an obsession with male pattern baldness. 
Perhaps I'll be unrecognizable to those I love or 
they'll remember a different version of me since
I no longer post myself online in public spaces,
private spaces, or public places. 

Perhaps they'll think I'm some imposter or
the Chinese sun or pollution has caused more creases
around my eyes with the crow's feet that became a murder.
Perhaps they'll think that my skin turned to leather
that matches a Louis Vuitton handbag where the
sunspots, pot marks and moles look like those
ugly monograms from the 90s or even worse
perhaps they'll simply be astounded by me now
with my less than ideal appearance, less-learned ideals
and same disconnection that I had Post-Covid.

Perhaps their love and trust turns scathing
as toxic self-care and self-love has consumed 
my country and this is the result of falling-behind
or backpedaling into some depressive episode or
too many seed oils or too much "Chinese" food
that's only take-out, take-away or taken up.
Perhaps I just don't eat enough Protein. 

These last two years I've been managing
and coordinating a new existence in terms of my life here,
but along the way I forgot to take care of myself and provide
me with the emotional, psychological and physical love.
I look in the mirror and I don't look like myself 
since I avoid mirrors now,
since I don't shower as often as I did,
since I don't do my hair,
since I forget to really care about how I look. 

So much pride once resided in my appearance based upon
clothes carefully thrifted and endlessly researched with:
2020s Portuguese sustainable fair-trade linen/亚麻布 shirts,
Gen Z loose-cut cotton/棉 shirts，
Millennial Doc Martin-esque leather/牛皮 boots.
and 1980s unnamed animal fur/毛皮 coats.
Now it has turned into doom scrolling on Taobao
searching for something I like with natural fibers 
exuding a sense of originality that redefines classics
that can be multifunctional, but not too distracting 
in terms of being professional without the professionalism. 

I feel like my indecisiveness and my lack of interest
is a greater problem that stems that it's not so much the fabric,
but rather the mannequin that it would be placed upon. 
With improper proportions and hard to find measurements
in a country that would humble the most well-proportioned man or woman.