Broken English By Rupi Kaur

A discombobulated couple that landed in the new world with hopes that left the bitter taste of rejection in their mouths No family , no friends, just man and wife, 2 university degrees that meant nothing One mother tongue that was broken Now, with swollen belly with a baby inside Because no matter what, this baby was coming And they thought to themselves, for a split second, was it worth it to put all of our money into the dream of a country that is swallowing us whole And papa look’s at my mother’s eyes And sees loneliness living where the Iris was Wants to give her a home in a country that looks at her with the word visitor wrapped around their tongues On their wedding day she left an entire village to be his wife, And now she left an entire country to be a warrior And when the winter came, they had nothing but the warmth of their own bodies to keep the coldness out. And like two brackets they faced one another To hold the hold the dearest part of them, their children, Close. They turned a suitcase full of clothes into a life and regular paycheck to make sure that children of immigrants wouldn’t hate them for being children of immigrants They worked too hard, You can tell by their hands Their eyes were begging for sleep but our mouths were begging to be fed And that is the most artistic thing I have ever seen It is poetry to these ears that have never heard what passion sounds like. There are no words in the English language that can articulate that kind of beauty I can’t compact their existence into 26 letters and call it a description I tried once but the adjectives needed to describe them don’t even exist So I ended up with Pages and pages full of words followed with commas and more words and more commas only to realize that there are somethings in the world that are so infinite They could never use a full stop So how dare you mock your mother when she opens her mouth and broken English spills out Her accent is thick like honey, hold it with your life It’s the only thing she has left from home Don’t you stomp on that richness Instead hang it up on the walls of museums next to Dali and Van Gogh Her life is brilliant and tragic This is a poem by famous poet Rupi Kaur