We don’t want you to suffer
BY mariela tax / translation by willy palomo

We don’t want you to suffer—discrimination—,
my parents would say.
That’s how fear robbed us of a part of our identity.

The sounds of our language live within
our being,
they move, we recognize them,
but they refuse to come out,
refuse to sing.

Now we suffer
because our mother tongue was taken from us.

They tell us now the real shame
              is not in speaking your language,
but in not speaking it.
Now we don’t fit anywhere.

We were denied our mother tongue.
Because of the fear of harm,
shame has buried us.

Now we attempt to make our ears docile,
attentive,
but the tongue falters,
like water on the rocks.

We don’t want you to suffer—discrimination—
my parents would say.
That’s how fear severed an artery
of our identity.