Writer: Sanjana Jijo
My tongue is imprisoned within my jaw.
My jaw is seized by a helpless anger .
Vehement. Impotent. Perhaps irrational; excessive.
I want to kill these tears. My eyes become reservoirs of water
My tongue I try to imprison,
To keep the traitorous Tamil
That’s plotting an escape into the air outside under check.
The thick lump in my throat is accompanied by a blurring mixture of mostly Tamil, then Malayalam.
Where has my English gone, when I need it?
Right now, in the class?
Humiliated like a toddler again whose garbled words never quite switch fully, straighten out completely into one language.
Pure? Yeah, right.
My body. You oversee its reality. Defect.
I hope one day, you this professor, you this lecture, this instructor.
I want to grip your wrist so hard you feel what I feel for a minute, whereas I feel it all the time except when I sleep.
I surely hope you will know, what its like,
(You’re older than me, and your time will come soon.)
(My mother says every dog has its day.)
I desperately hope Karma will teach you
what you refuse to learn, to see, from me.
I feel ashamed but you should be feeling shame.
People like you make me powerless, paranoid everyday.
I hope one day, like me, you are begging for dignity because of your body.
For accessibility.
Everyone thinks you are lying, so they keep on denying it.
My bones, my muscles, my body aren’t mine anymore. They are yours.
Your puppet, your possession.
You command these inept, broken strings like a puppet master,
After fixing the tight lace ups of a corset of your choice.
And if I want good things in life and to be considered good;
I must be slave, I must be puppet,
To your hands that crush
The grinding swollen crunch in my limbs,
When I make any request hesitantly,
I must be what they are,
Though they are not what I am,
They don’t have what I have.
Why must I preface every thought of a choice with wondering whether your assessment will be a roadblock in my performance?
My words always kneel before you, begging, even if my knees don’t.
And the average person, student, or adult
Is still curious why I remain and was friends with a Biology topper, a senior
Who had cerebral palsy and used a walker to assist his legs.
You see, he knew some parts of me which you never try to know.
I never had to beg him, for dignity. He knew what that was like.
We went at a pace you could never imagine.
