language barriers

2021

missing words – so cavernous and lacking

– echo loudest. language lost over years;

a piece of childhood i failed

to retain.

“She never learn behasa? cantonese? hokkien?”

“Aiyah how like that? Hami? Parents never teach?

Mama, Papa both Malaysian some more.”

i know the simple things:

eat, makan, seik, jia

you, awak, lei, lu

me, saya, ngor, wa

enough (or rather, cukup)

to get by, but

those missing words hang around me – disjointed, dissonant

notes that should ring true; fragments

of meaning – a stained glass dialogue shattered.

“ee buey sai ming ba.”

“she doesn’t understand”

but i do, not the words themselves

but the texture of each, the sound –

the flow of syllables – stand as

reminders of all i never learned.

“jialat, you know?

you speak behasa? cantonese? hokkien?

no?”

Note: She does not understand (“ee buey sai” is Hokkien, “ming ba” is Cantonese)