There’s a tongue in my blood
that don’t sit right in my mouth—
words I know in feeling
but not in sound.
My grandma prayed in it,
soft and low,
like a secret meant for someone
who I never meet.
She’d stir the beans slow,
hum songs I never learned,
and when I asked what they meant,
she’d just say,
child, some things ain’t meant to be told.
I carry stories in me
that I don’t have the voice for—
songs without melody,
homes without maps.
My hands know more than my mouth does,
my silence says more than my tongue.
Some days I ache in syllables
I ain’t never been taught.
I dream in colors
that don’t exist in this country.
I write poems
with ghosts in the grammar.
And when I try to speak it—
whatever it is—
the words feel like someone else’s teeth
in my mouth.
But still,
I keep trying.
To shape the hush into music.
To name the ache without breaking it.
To say I am here,
even if it sounds like
something I ain't sure how to mean.