Language Autobiography

“The heart only speaks coded language when the spirit forgets who it was born to be!” Greg Corbin

In my life language is an art form that I use to communicate with other people. I am like broken glass; every word I speak is about individuality. In my family the way we communicate with each other is important. When I’m with my friends, who are hearing impaired, we create conversations with our hands. When I am around poets we speak in metaphors people may never understand.

“Get Free! On the line. Go in Toni!”  Silence. The moment when the silence takes over and all you can hear is the butterflies, flapping in your stomach. I close my eyes and step to the microphone. I picture all the words in my head like a broken VCR tape that just won’t play the right scene. I breathe an unsteady heartbeat that comes out my throat. “I know a girl who once made phantom memories and turned them into figurines babies she was meant to have.” I expected some snaps for that line. That one line played in my head for weeks. It wasn’t worth it. I continued my poem. People just stared at me as if what I was saying wasn’t worthy enough to be on spoken stage. I forgot my poem my VCR of a brain stopped working all together. I backed up as if I would run off the stage and never touch a microphone again. I walked back up to it and in very exhausted tone said “there is always a clamp disguised as snake ready to bite and tear that egg out you.” Usually when a person messes up and forgets their lines the audience would snap and encourage you. Everyone just stared at me and waited. They expected something to come from me, some type of miracle. After my poem my mentor came up to me and said in a very nonchalant voice “You did good, your performance could’ve been better. You need to work on delivery.” I accepted the advice and said very robotically “Thank you.”  My friend, who is also a poet, came up to me with disappointment stitched in her smile and exclaimed “The reason why people didn’t like your poem was because you don’t sound like everyone else. You don’t write like everyone else.”

When I feel like something gets stuck in my throat such as my feelings, I go missing. As a result of me not knowing my voice in poetry and my purpose as a writer I decided not to go to slams or show up for any events. When I do not fit in because of my language or cultural background I tend to distance myself because I am uncomfortable. I feel as if, if I am not like everyone else I do not fit in. There is a certain standard I must live up to in order for myself to be comfortable in the skin I am wrapped in. When I don’t know a language it makes it harder for me to trust what people might think and do to me. Every time I think of speech and language it reminds me of a poem that stated, “language is leverage boasting on the teeth of a lightning bolt all spiteful and screen splitting.” People tend to take advantage of the ways they are different from you. There are constant reminders all around us from places such as the media, family, and everyday activities. The idea of language plays hide and go seek with acceptance.

“Everyone must sit with someone not from your running group.” An unfamiliar voice shouted out. I was extremely nervous; this was my first time at running camp. I walked over to the nearest table where a guy with hazel-brown eyes like the forest's floor stared at me. Without a word he moved over and watched me as I took my seat. I turned and looked at him and very politely said, “Hi, my name is Toni.” He turned around very quickly and began to scramble around. I could tell he was looking for something. I figured it was his identity because he couldn’t tell me his name, I thought that was rude. He turned around and had napkins and a pen; he wrote, “Hi my name is Hiram, nice to meet you.” I wrote back and said, “Why aren’t you talking to me?” He giggled and quickly wrote back “I’m deaf, I can’t hear sorry.” Immediately after that I became even more nervous than before. I asked him to teach me my alphabet in sign language. He smiled and wrote back “You can’t learn it in a day!” I was very determined because I didn’t want to miss out on a wonderful person because of language barriers. I wrote back and showed him I was excited and wrote, ” I can learn in a night.” We sat there at the dinner table and went over the letters more than thirty times each. Each time I messed up he would look at me with those eyes and paint me a picture of patience and appreciation. I finger spelled to him about 2 hours later and said “I told you I can learn in a night, thank you for teaching me.” He signed back but I have no Idea what he said, all I could recognize what the letters “Goo- Ht” I assumed he said “goodnight.”

I became about seventy- five percent fluent in six months. Although now I am fluent in sign language I still become very nervous and self-conscious around hearing impaired people because I am not deaf. I even use a translators sometimes, making conversations with your hands isn’t easy. Your facial expressions are important and valued. I think I am more comfortable with sign language because they cannot hear my insecurities in my voice, the scratchy tones of regret for starting the conversation in the first place. But hearing impaired people seem to be more grateful because a lot of people in the world do not use sign language. Yet I still have doubts and internal issues because of acceptance of not being them. Sometimes I wish I could switch my disadvantages on like water from the faucet and let it pour through my fingers to guide me. I think I need guidance in order to understand I can’t learn every language and people might not judge me because of it. And again language is equivalent to acceptance.

There are some people who actually appreciate it, when you take the time and effort to learn and embrace their culture. In many of the cases I have experienced people have treated me differently from my perspective but maybe I am just paranoid. I am still trying to find my identity in the world. Acceptance is the key to happiness and appreciation for one’s self, if I do not know a language I will not be happy and therefore I won’t be accepted.

My definition of what language is has changed dramatically. Language is a reminder of how I will never be what the people around me are, no matter how hard I try. I tend to find myself depending on a translator for confront. Maybe one day I’ll over come that internal conflict I have within myself. That Venus flytrap stuck between my throat making it hard to breathe and speak when I come around people that are not like me. I must remember "Word are more powerful than a gun. Watch what you say. Watch what ammunition lies under your tongue and inside the clip of your soul. It can either heal or kill" (Greg Corbin) My spirit is killed when I feel the lack of identity because of language, standards, and my art form. I must accept that language is like broken glass it’s all about individuality.