Between the distance

Chapter 2:Language

I fell in love with English. It started with small things — cartoons, storybooks, scribbled notes in class. But somewhere in the blur of childhood, it became a mission.

I thought that if I spoke it well enough, you would understand me better.

I imagined you living far away in an English-speaking world, where fathers spoke English to their children and may be ever so maybe that was bridge to you.

I read everything I could. Wrote essays like they were letters addressed to your absence. I became fluent in the language of longing. I thought if I could say things better, more beautifully, maybe I could fill the space you left behind.

You never asked me about school. But I wanted to tell you.

About how I placed first in writing competitions.

About how my teachers said I had a gift.

My gift was grief in disguise.

The words were just a bridge to you that I crossed alone.

The prowess with how I spoke and uttered every syllable was mastered from the western world.Eluded by the hope of you taking me there and I was more than ready.

I dismembered myself from the tongue that raised me,the tongue you perhaps were running from.