Yo Sé Quién Soy

For years, I have forced my tongue into
syllables that are not mine.
They are those of my mother,
of my grandmothers,
of ancestors who have
paved the way for me to
command a language
that was never mine to claim.
But I cannot feel comfortable
in this tongue,
not for my lack of vocabulary,
nor my confusion of grammatical tense
but for my ignorance of
gender.

Spanish words bring with them
connotations I will never know,
genders defined ages ago,
rules made never to be broken.
I do not know how to
assert myself in this space
when I do not fit here.
Somewhere between intruso and intrusa,
my identity lies, unknown, invalid,
lost in this language I so desperately
want to call
home.
 
So I will hold this tongue to my chest,
and I will talk of those who have come before me,
those who have spoken in o’s and a’s
with more confidence than I will ever know.
Someday, I will find the words to
describe myself with letters made for me,
but until then, I will bite my tongue
and hope I am 
understood.

About the author

Ashen Speir writes haunting short stories and poetry with emphasis on queer and neurodivergent representation. They went to Bloomsburg University, where they studied too many languages and earned a degree in Creative Writing. Now, they live in central Pennsylvania trying to turn daydreams into stories.

Photo by Haberdoedas on Unsplash.