I speak 5 languages
fluent in english & spanish
the others I can hold down
conversationally: french,
turkish, italian
kiswahili – that’s still baby steps
but then there’s this other one
has got me confused
with its nuances
past present future tenses
how to use it properly
so I’ll sound like a native speaker
then I remind myself
there are millions of people
out there just like me
learning this language
stumbling over sentences
at times incoherent
almost always hearing the
language mocking us back
as if to say “you’re never gonna
be fluent if you don’t practice
speaking it on a daily basis”
and I wonder if the reason
why I struggle so much
with is it because I try to
compare it to the other languages
I already know
or could it be because I’ve heard
this language spoken so many times
before that I tell myself how hard
can it be?
but how to make out the words
uttered by others that sound
like something so foreign to me
as if they all know the secrets,
the coded messages
surely I can master this language
even if my sentences aren’t
always perfectly crafted
I, too can find a way to express
myself sufficiently in this language
love
a verb
a noun
an identifier
love, a language so elusive
that I wonder if I will ever
have a strong command of
her nuances
will she forgive that I sometimes
mispronounce and misspell
her name
