Echoes of a peculiar sound fill my rib cage.
A sound escapes my mouth,
And my whole body goes alert,
Trying to determine
Whether there is danger.
It recognises the sound,
But not quite.
It searches through memory,
Turning over forgotten pages,
Trying to remember
What this feeling is.
I stiffen at this familiar,
Yet distant sensation.
I try to read my body language,
Hoping I'll understand.
But it is a foreign language.
Why does every fibre in me
Insist
I should recognise it?
Like it's a language
That once rolled off my tongue
Without needing translation.
But my eardrums puzzle it out.
All I hear
Is a peculiar sound
That feels borrowed.
The room fills
With its echoes.
The longer I listen,
The more I realise
Something is missing.
It sounds...
Hollow.
Like an actor
Who knows every line,
But has forgotten
How to mean them.
And then,
I recognise it.
Not because it became familiar—
But because I remembered
Who it belonged to.
It was my laughter.
So that's why
My body couldn't place it.
It had been so long
Since joy had spoken
In my own voice.
When I speak a foreign language
I cross my eyes and dot my teas
Little wonder I substitute ~
‘Thank you’ for ‘Please’
Listening to my grandma speak Dutch wondering what kind of language it was
Who ever came up with falling in love,
Letting one person be the apple of our eye, the one who makes us smile, the light and joy of our world.
Who made hearts so fragile, easily shattered with a harsh word or action.
Who had made falling in love a cycle, one no one can break.
It starts with a look, than the friendship. The butterflies in your stomach, the intoxication from their smell.
The way they can make you smile,
Just by passing you in the halls.
They may not know it, how you are secretly falling in love.
For the language of love is a foreign one,
One that no one knows how to speak yet.
Why does it hurt so?
The tightness, the constant need to cry.
The feeling of never being able to recover,
From the pieces from your last relationship.
Being treated as crap is not fun,
And can easily make you loose faith.
That everyone that wants to be with you,
Is just a playboy, a fake.
Whoever came up with falling in love,
Most likely has never experienced it fully.
They don't know the pain that comes with it,
If you two won't make it.
But what's a greater pain,
Is seeing your love walk away
With another.
My lips are sealed
Tightened by pain
Locked with secrets
Perhaps I should tell you...
My life and my memories,
My troubles and struggles.
I could teach you a thing or two,
Respect, loyalty and class,
The 1950's and the 1960's.
If you want to know my dear-
Watch closely.
Look beyond the tears in my
eyes,
Translate the tremble of my hands
That is how you speak my language, petal
it's much more than words.
Merde!
Nous sommes a la plage
Is all I can remember how to say.
Merde!
Was back in the (high-schoolish) day
when French was all the rage.
Merde!
Nous sommes a la plage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HA! And I actually got admitted to college!
Sanskrit sweeping bronze and spine
riddled there when you were mine
underneath the spice and sun
cinnamon skin and sleepy rum
Now the wind has blown the words
riddled once and then disturbed
blown to dust and settled seas
salt and brined the lurid breeze.
Have you heard any body speak in foreign language,
and compared it to the growl of a tiger,
or even the bark of a dog,
both weigh the same,
they are unintelligible sounds,
the only difference is that,
you know it is the human,
who spake with self interest in full,
and the animal,
with his limited self interest,
and it is the self interest,
which makes you familiar,
with language,
so that it is not foreign any longer.
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