A dialect
so different
that gargles from our gulping mouths
was formed in the teenage years
the gap between child and adult.
It was formed in between the steaming windows
of our first shared room
was wrought by the sticky fingers of our midnight-feasting.
It developed over time,
your African ancestors licking at the chocolate in your teeth
sharing mingled moments of warmth and sadness
with the carefree twang of my pacific past.
We lay together
your dark skin melting into mine
and over time
our throats sculpted their own language
as Babylonian linguists rejoiced
at the Genesis of us.
But over time
the grammar stumbled
and diplomacy broke between us,
and the shared bed of our childhood
was cracked open by the semantics of our youth.
My tongue clung to the dancing prose,
as if to return to the moment of our first embrace,
my sheets ached for the scent of your skin;
Arched back missing your equatorial warmth.
I gushed out words for you
Choking on damp notions of our shared past.
I tried to force in the commas
that married your phrase to mine;
straining to utter those sounds that were so sacredly ours .
But my verses had no meaning,
when the apostle lost all faith.
And then
one day
like breath returning to a body,
our dialect once again filled you
head to toe, heavy with the wet weight of love.
And just as before
you spilled into my arms
Our tongues mingled in a garbled kiss
Of language, more physical than my owns hands
clinging to your butter-skin.
I felt you breathing against my heart
heard whispered extracts of your internal litanies
drifting out through parted lips.
And I felt again
the mangled words
the beautiful drawl
This dialect, so definitely ours.