I Wanted to Speak Tamil, but I Can't Speak Swahili, so I Spoke


a language that did not exist. I spoke my own language.

All night we sat on a bench in the train station

where they don’t sell tickets to our harem in Netherlands.


It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself for letting the ants

build their Orwellian and Aristotelian metropolis above our heads.

We deserve it. Yet we still stick our tongues at the black clouds


for their monosemy conclusion when the moon plays checkers

in our eyes. Khalil Gibran was right, you said. So was

Barry Manilow. So is the cello I left singing Cantonese by the


opaque purple sea. Listen to me, we can’t go on waiting

for a train from India or Indonesia or even Andalusia.

We can’t go on waiting for him. Listen to me, we have to leave


language while we still can, before the next train comes and takes

away our silence. Listen to me, listen, there is a bird-house

somewhere in France, there is a bird-house somewhere in Japan,


there is a bird-house somewhere –



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