“My life. I wake up in the morning and hear strange, yet recognizable words. The young and the old that I approach, women and men, there is nothing I cannot understand from the mouths of these people, but there is something oddly unfamiliar about these words. They lack roots. They lack true feeling and emotion. They are hollow words of a game I believe I started played before I was ever conscious of myself.
This cannot be my native tongue. At least, there is something odd about this language. My words do not express me, but they become a mask of everything I believe in and feel. They turn unbearable pain into quiet pleasantries. They make my physical memory forget of love, loss, and passion, and instead place the topic of the weather at the top of my priorities.
I speak a language that is light on the tongue. The words flitter in my mouth and on my lips as a butterfly makes its way through wildflowers. Sometimes my tongue is so light that it trips on itself, and I stumble in words. This cannot be my native tongue.
And yet I command the syllables that escape my lips with eloquence and possess a natural fluidity that surprises those around me. Try as I may, I cannot make this language coarse in my mouth.
There are deep memories in some of the words I choose. Memories from before the time of my existence. ”
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