Sometimes I struggle to wrap my tongue around these crude words that form in my esophagus
....Words foreign in feel and thought and life and meaning
Consonants that PUNCH and p u l l to contort and twist my tongue into alien shapes and auditory sounds
Vowels that hurt me, to bend and twist-
like trying to fit my body into a vice meant to steal my magic
Like putting my neck in a collar to keep me in check
I want to break free,
dance and run with the wind,
yelling words in a language that I know exists,
but know not myself
They come to my mind and my being and then disappear as if a dream ...
Some distant genetic memory
Ingrained in my being,
but not in my physical body
I want to kiss with a tongue that knows its roots
and converses with its ancestors
Alas,
I am but a child,
lost in the ways of a world that will not acknowledge me unless I speak in
codes and switch my natural sense of self for a watered down version
Like koolaid for blood, this water does not turn into wine
It festers and pools in conjunctions and prepositions
It coagulates in verb noun agreements and withers in this elementary syntax
My tongue knows more about my history than I do
And I yearn for just a taste of remembrance
That will set my soul on fire
And my heels afloat with the dance of a people who are so close, but yet...
still very far away from me