The Words Don’t Fit in My Brain

The Words Don’t Fit in My Mouth

—Jessica Care Moore

Language feels like sandpaper skin

sounds like chalkboard fingernails

tastes like moldy whole grain vinegar-soaked bread

stale soju

smells like New Year’s Eve Times Square

First language I knew

heard from my mother’s womb

subway conversations eavesdropped

students’ gossip

hear doctors, agency workers

coerce my relinquishment

Forever lost language

white colonizers stole

unfound hide and seek

literary maze

dumbfounded mother tongue

Subtitles evaporate

Korean dramas overtime

rewind, repeat bad translation

glimpse body language

forced to watch bad

Korean movies

each film

one syllable closer

to fluency

Fifteen years tutored

language partners exchange

more English

than Korean

Level 1 stuck

Return to Start

my body tries to speak

words my brain cannot

language snatched,

choked from my life

lost luggage left

at Kimpo airport

The words don’t fit in my brain

like A4 paper

won’t fit in letter-size folders

my life lost in translation

twisted tongue

trips over Korean alphabet

the words don’t fit in my brain

but they fit in my heart