Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Dangled Languages

Dear you,

My words dangle in front of me, between two languages. I do not know in which language I want to write. I want to write in both languages and sometimes in neither. I drown in my own hesitation, and I sometimes drop the pen and decide to keep the words inside of me, or dangled until they fall on the floor of my silence, giving my soul nothing but emptiness and tepid regret. Tepid regret? How can regret even be ever tepid?
But I've seen worse days. Days when words refused to manifest themselves for a poor writer like myself. Words that resented me and threw me in a corner of desolate silences, unending pauses, and I was completely unaware of how much I needed them.

I think of all of this on my way to a boring trip that I am not half excited about. I take a taxi and sit comfortably in the back seat, trying to gasp for some air in this weather, while the driver sits and takes his handkerchief in his hands, wiping his sweat every minute. "Why are they inflicting torture upon themselves?" I wonder, and take him off my thoughts. And I then think of him. My ride is not the same without him. I call him, my lover, my partner, the one I survive my days with.
I take his words to my ears, listen to them carefully while he says, "write in the language that pleases you the most, that you feel yourself the most in." I gasp for some air again. Where does this hot wind come from?
I smile. It sounds so easy. But I tell him that I am ashamed I cannot write in my mother tongue, my language. A language I speak every day. His words are so comforting, and I am so head over heels.
I take the elevator to where I should be. I wait there for nearly 20 minutes before I make my final destination and leave. I think of the words he said; "the language you feel yourself most in."
I leave. And I wait for the night to fall upon the horizon so I can ready myself with words in my other language. I make a promise that, whatever happens, I have to make myself ready for words when they come out, whatever the language may be.

Writing itself is a language within a language. A language we create, using a language we know. And words are the magic we never see in the process.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,
N.

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