Foreign in My Own Mouth

for the boy who learned silence in four tongues

I was thirteen
            when I first bit my name in half—
tucked the salt of it beneath my tongue
            & smiled like it didn’t burn.

The teacher paused,
            eyes scanning the attendance list
like it was an artifact
            & I, the mispronounced ruin
at the center.
            She asked if there was something easier
she could call me.

I said yes,
            even though I meant
you can call me broken,
            call me whatever makes you feel
more at home
            in your whiteness.

I’ve been erasing myself
            ever since.

Some days, I pray
            in a language I barely remember—
syllables falling apart
            like bones from a ribcage.
Other days, I curse
            in English so sharp
it cuts the boy
            I used to be.

Even my own reflection flinches
            when I try to speak
the whole of me aloud.

This mouth,
            this country of teeth & doubt,
has forgotten how to hold
            its mother’s voice.

I try to say
            grief
& instead say
            grit.
I try to say
            God
& instead
            a silence answers back.

What does it mean
            to carry a voice
that feels borrowed?
            To sing a song
that no one taught you
            how to finish?

I’ve learned
            to shape my shame
into something holy—
            a liturgy of mistranslation,
a hymn built from hunger.

I stand in front of my students now,
            asking them to write
what they’re afraid to speak—
            & when they ask me
what it means to belong,
            I tell them:

sometimes, survival is learning
            to taste your name again,
even when the world
            keeps calling you stranger

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