VI A Language To Live In

I did not begin writing in English
out of intention.

It came later.

As something I needed.

For a long time,
I lived entirely
within my native language.

It shaped how I spoke,
how I thought,
how I understood my place.

Everything moved within its structure.

Measured.

Implied.

Often left unsaid.

There were things I felt
that did not take form.

Not because they did not exist.

Because there was no space
to hold them.

The language carried history.

Expectation.

A way of being.

It favored what was appropriate
over what was true.

For years,
I moved within these limits
without naming them.

Later,
I encountered another language.

At first,
it was practical.

A way to function.

Then something shifted.

English allowed directness.

A sentence could stand
without negotiation.

I was not only translating.

I was thinking differently.

What had been vague
became precise.

What had remained distant
became reachable.

Writing in English
did not change who I was.

It changed what I could reach.

There remains a distance
between the languages I carry.

One is rooted in history,
in family,
in what came before.

The other was entered later.

Less fixed.

Still forming.

I do not reject one
for the other.

I recognize
where I can breathe.

Where the sentence holds.

Writing in English
became, over time,
a necessity.

Not to escape the past.

But to live with it
more clearly.

In a voice
I could use.

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