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My Lot

I am walking,
slowly.
I am numb
right side:
my foot,
my leg,
my hand,
my shoulder,
my cheek.

Still,
I am walking.
Grateful.

But
no speech.
Pathetically slow,
every day.
Week by week.
Month by month.
Year by Year.
Now a decade. (A decade!)
So slow.

It is like
drowning?
underground
but still seeing
people walking by
speaking—so effortlessly!

I. Am. Envious.

Please, God.

I accept my lot.

Not true.
I recognize my lot.
The black hole in my brain.

But I fight.
Rewire my brain.
For the rest of my life.

I learning again:
my mother tongue
like a foreign language.
Strangers—
so many strangers—ask:
What country are you from?

Wire by wire by wire.

But don’t worry,
dear reader,
and don’t pity me.

I have grit.
I pick myself up.

I adapt
to this new, atypical culture.

I change.

Rewire.

Recognize my lot
as language
electrician.

—
Farzana Marie is a poet, writer, translator, artist, and dancer. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona, with a focus on Persian Literature and a minor in Creative Writing. She also has an M.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts Boston and a B.S. in Humanities from the U.S. Air Force Academy. Her poetry and translations have appeared in numerous print and online journals.

Presently, Farzana is in the planning phase of an immersive multi-sensory project called The Soul of Language Museum, to be located in New Mexico. She is also writing her memoir.

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