Words as they are in my language have never felt correct.
I shift my voice, pitch it higher, pitch it lower.
Forming letters that stumble across my tongue,
Slowly counting to one hundred in my mind,
But losing track of where I am by the time I reach twenty.
I know it is not correct.
But sometimes,
I will hear others speak.
They are doing it Correctly.
I mimic as best I can,
Staring myself down in a mirror,
Repeating the words they use over,
And over,
And over.
It is not enough.
I continue to push dirt and gravel out of my throat,
Coughing it up because I know no other way to Speak.
Do you know the game Charades?
One person stands, and picks a specific word, secretly.
They have to then get the audience to figure out that word,
All while the person is not allowed to Speak–
They can only use their body to demonstrate actions.
My mind loses itself, sometimes.
Where there was a phrase, now there is simply confusion.
But I do not lose the words entirely
I still know what I wish to convey–
Only, I can no longer speak it in a way others Understand.
I lay awake at night, sometimes.
I wonder–
How would I teach another to speak?
How would I begin?
How would they ever truly know that I am teaching them?
I worry that I would bring my own curse upon them too.
I worry that they would feel hurt,
Because they are not understanding me,
Even though it is on me to teach them Well, and I am not doing it Right.
If there is one emotion I can find throughout my childhood,
It is the horrors of misunderstanding.
I don’t know
Is responded to with
You should know already, though.
And I look around,
Look at my peers,
Look at my instructor. My teacher.
And the coal, and the gravel,
It piles in the back of my throat,
A blazing fire,
Smoke rising up to my eyes, making them water.
I don’t know, I repeat.
I don’t get it, I say.
I don’t understand. I utter, quietly and desperately trying to ignore the flames.
My instructor. My teacher.
Don’t you remember?
I shake my head, and look away.
The heat rises to my cheeks, burning them as I fall to shame.
I meet the teacher’s eyes.
They are filled with confusion,
Disdain,
Then annoyance.
Then impatience.
And then,
Anger.
I realize with a start that if I were to imagine that expression,
Try to think of where I saw it first, or last,
I would not be able to pinpoint who to attribute it to,
Because I have been seeing it in every pair of eyes I glance into my entire life.
My face involuntarily scrunches up,
And I scrub at my face violently, desperately,
Begging the tears to fall some other time,
When I am alone.
The flames have moved to my lungs, filling them up with more smoke,
Sending me into a flurry of shallow breaths,
And I can no longer breathe.
And I cry,
then,
Surrounded by silent watchers and a shocked authority,
And I wish for nothing else except to be understood,
And I decide that my Words are not the same,
Because any other first grader would have simply shrugged,
And continued on.
