If you ask me if I am fluent in Spanish, I will tell you My Spanish is an itchy phantom limb, it is reaching for words and only finding air.
My Spanish is my third birthday party. Half of it is memory, the other half is that photograph on the fridge is what my family has told me.
My Spanish is puzzle left in the rain, too soggy to make its parts fit together to look just like the picture on the box.
My Spanish is possessive adjectives, It is proper nouns dressed in pearls and bracelets, It is “are you up yet”. It is “there is a lot of work to do today”.
My Spanish is on my resumé as a skill.
My Spanish is on my toothbrush in red mouth marks.
My Spanish reaches for words at the top of a shelf with no stepping stool, is hit in the head with all of the words that I’ve been hiding up there.
My Spanish wonders if it’s bad to eat something that’s expired.
My Spanish wonders if it has an expiration date.
My Spanish ask you why it’s always being compared to food. Spicy. Hot. Sizzle.
My Spanish wants to let you know it is not something to be eaten and then shit out, but does not really believe it.
My Spanish, My Spanish, if you ask me if I am fluent in Spanish, I’ll tell you My Spanish sits in the corner of a classroom chews on a pencil does not raise its hand.
My Spanish is my sister’s sore smile at her only beauty pageant.
My Spanish is a made-up story about a parent who never came home.
My Spanish is a made-up story about a parent who never came home but traveled to beautiful countries, sent me postcards from all of them.
My Spanish is me tracing every letter they were able to fit in.
My Spanish is true story of my parents divorce. Chaotic, broken. Something I have to choose to remember correctly.
My Spanish is asking me if my parents are American, asking me if I’m White yet.
My Spanish, My Spanish. If you ask me if I am fluent in Spanish, I’ll try to tell you a story of how my parents met in an ESL class.
How it was when they trained their mouths to say “I love you” in a different language, “I hate you” with their mouths shut.
I’ll tell you how my father’s accent makes him sound like Zorro, how my mother tried to tie her tongue to a post with an English language leash.
How the tongue always ran stubbornly back to the language it had always been in love with. Even when she tried to tame it it always turned loose.
My Spanish, My Spanish. My Spanish is understanding there are stories that will always be out of my reach.
There are people who will never fit together the way that I wanted them to there are letters that will always stay silent, there are words that will always escape me.
snowghoul
gracieabrams
vaporwave
2087
