(body) language
being bilingual comes with realizing you cannot fully speak either language
because you know enough of each to realize the extent of which you do not know
and cannot ever know
on account of being bilingual
they are farces, these words
they leave your body
unexpressed,
cannot fully justify itself
shifting currents, identities
floating, forming, breaking
between the weight of two worlds
solace in the coolness of the ground
perhaps when I was little
I felt broken
by the brokenness of family
histories from before my birth were
unwitting vortexes and chasms
incomplete, half-formed
encompassing nothing and yet everything
stretching myself
between these orbiting, revolving, eclipsing objects
then I remembered
our stories hidden in layers of earth
I fell back down
and flailed around as
I failed to find my roots
but the stories, they rise of their own anger
and diffuse into my veins
unknowingly, they are already a part of me
for dust is constantly expanding
I know now that family is many different things
that the pain
and suffering
and conflict
running through my history
are no greater than the love
flowing as a river does in springtime
all the way down to me
Cover credit: Jonny Kennaugh/Unsplash
