The words hiding behind my mouth are cradled in my soft hands
Hold them, feel their heat, decode the messages under my skin,
Each of them from a language you cannot even recognize;
The familiar sights of home are nothing but
Empty bottles of knowledge kept away in a box only I hold the key to;
Run towards me and please please please listen to me, for
My words cannot bridge the gap between us although
I have tried; with
No clamor in the background,
Ask me to repeat myself once more, and please please please
Listen to me.

The French language to you, was little more than an inheritance
It was the promise between mother and daughter that a grandchild ought to know the language they used

In Bonnyville, they occupy the church, the Sobeys, the liquor store with that butchered accent
The hybrid between Quebecois French and rural Albertan English - ugly, and indecisive

You don’t live in Bonnyville, where the French roam free
The French in Edmonton feels lost, almost unknown
Poorly funded buildings house these Franco-albertans - children with the same inheritance as you

Immersion becomes a ***** word,
worthy of contempt and disgust
All the French kids know each other,
forced to grow up together while being deprived of options
They all go to the same university - the small francophone campus which stands unimpressive in the only neighbourhood in Edmonton where stop signs say ‘arrêt’

Oil Country, home for the right and prosperous, they don’t like you
You, you’re Francophone -
Stuck up, ******, pretentious...
Besides, there are no such things as Franco-albertans.

What could you be other than an invented term by some lost souls?
You aren’t French enough -
Alberta is an English speaking province.

The time you went to France,
someone asked if you were French-Canadian
Before you could reply, your friends spun your story - something believable, commendable...
your parents, lived in Montreal, and moved to Alberta with their wholly French children

Your father grew up in Edmonton,
memorizing the parks and malls by name
while your mother lived on a dairy farm, living in french - the ugly acadienesque french.

But, to everyone around you, it’s much more believable that you are a stranger to this province.
Maybe you are.

I'm not going to rant to you
as you may not understand

You have always said
promised to me, over and over again
that you will be there to talk to
if i ever dare feel the need

In a moment of weakness
i try to use the words
that i know you will not understand

english is a harsh language
With hard, stiff, stone letters
Sharp words
Blunt
The tough, callused hand
better at beating you down
Than helping you up

Other languages
A way to comfort you in a relation
a way to turn these stiff ways of the tounge
to silk and fresh water
to something
easily, gentally, softly felt
As smooth as a cold, gliding glacier's stream

English is the langague
for facts, explanations
plain, blunt topics
It's hard to have words for feelings
Emotions
ways of the heart
But other lanauges don't have words for such things
They have words, phrases, exchanges, dialects, customs
for moments
for memories
for dreams, almost out of reach

So when I try to explain to you
What i am going through
behind the "I'm fine."

"You know what I mean?"
"Uh, not really"
Well ****
Now you know the thoughts inside my head
Twisted by your interpritaion
your intake
of me

Come, voice, back from the original black
Ness, Foot, Yankee Jim
I need a sign from a quasi mind not my own
Fiefallu dendress mazaiyato

Call.
Answer.

All
my answers
lead to nothing
absolute.

Call. Answer me.
I'll
answer you.

Not a compulsion
Never intended, just

Fiefallu dendress true.