"Lactic Acid" by Jenny Wong

Overseas. I lie awake again. Attempt to reconcile the hollows of old debts.

I think of inheritance. Parents. Grandparents. The way my fourth toenail curves instead of flattens. My susceptibility to sleepless nights. The ineptitude of my lungs when I run.

And yet, there is something deeper. An innocent thievery absent of intent. A time when my bones stole calcium from my mother's bones whose bones stole from her mother’s bones. How far back does this legacy go? How far have these minerals traveled? My great grandmother had a streak of white hair even before she crossed the ocean.

Perhaps as we get older, our skeletons begin to show.

There is something inside me that eats away any desire for stillness. And so perhaps this is why I wander. Something in my bones. Looking for home.

JENNY WONG is a writer, traveler, and occasional business analyst. Her favorite places to wander are Tokyo alleys, Singapore hawker centers, and Parisian cemeteries. She resides in Canada near the Rocky Mountains and tweets @jenwithwords.