there’s rules for everything.
when I was a kid,
I was taught to say
‘please and thank you’,
say ‘Ji’ instead of ‘what’,
but not to sound like a ****.
I never liked speaking at all
whether it was in English
or in strained Mirpuri.

my lips tripped,
stuck,
tongue stripped
of ability
to make anything but
pathetic mumbling,
a few sounds trapped
in the space
where everyone seemed to
unconsciously congregate.

I remember the first day of primary school,
in an all-white neighbourhood,
hearing boys say ‘what’, so
I told them you had to say ‘Ji’.
I remember the first day of high school,
hearing people speaking their dialect without strain,
but that space didn’t belong to me.

Now I’m up to my second 1st day of sixth form
and still I haven’t met anyone
stuck in the gap between ‘Ji’ and ‘what’.