In uptown streets and markets my English fails me on the tongue
and melts away like butter kissed by heat all my life I’ve been
cradled by language made to go to brick churches where God’s words
shifted into my native tongue and became stunning like birds breaking from
trees English was fed to me like thick porridge
from a dirty bowl shoved down the throat and commanded
to return as orchestral song as beauty as dazing
like azaleas bursting out of a mouth we were made to believe
that God’s face was the colour of the moon and his language
only pushed out through the nose my ancestors lived to see
their mountains and caves treated as unsacred l try
to remember this each time l face an altar of inscribed brimstone
and pray in a language that was birthed elsewhere today
I have taught myself to not write in Shona and
the guilt is like the shape of God moving through a corn field –
present and heavy on drunken nights all my friends
make confessional monologues in curled English accents and
I am the only one who slumps on mud grey floors and wonder
why language fails when l need it most today
I am moved by phonetics say zvirokwazvo and I’ll burst
into cascade everlasting say musikavanhu and the night
will uncurl itself into brightness l pride myself in this
dazzling movement of sound of a tongue bowing to submission
to history to heritage no one else understands this
as a child the first phrase l memorised was Vongai Jehovah
nekuti wakanaka and that sweetness cut away my tongue
until l was a tangle of light and glory in uptown streets and markets
everyone speaks English flowing smoothly like oil running down
an annointed’s hair no one feels guilty for it
I am the only one who slumps down into silence and chew my tongue
until l am calm again
Farai Chaka
Farai Chaka is a twenty-year-old writer from Harare, Zimbabwe. He enjoys long walks and horror shows during his free time.
Photo by Erika Fletcher on Unsplash