When you look at me, what do you see ?
A human being of flesh and blood?
What do you believe is reasonable?
At the gym,
I am dressing
In the locker room when
A duet of Hebrew rises over the metal divider wall.
My drowning heart grasps for any snippet
As if it were oxygen:
Yofi,
HaLaila,
Laughter.
I am overcome.
This music undoes me,
Hot droplets of exile
Spill down my cheeks.
I thank the women for their Ivrit,
Beg them to never stop,
Tell them I dream of returning
To Jerusalem
For Purim,
B’ezrat Hashem.
I am that little girl who
Hid in her bedroom
Each night after
Performing in The Nutcracker Ballet
With a makeshift menorah:
A red cookie tin filled with
Pine-scented votives,
Not knowing what I was doing,
Or why,
Or what to say,
Or how to pray.
I am but one of
The legions of indigenous people
Wrested of our mother tongues,
Mouths colonized.
I want my words back.
I want all of us returned to our
Original beauty.
On behalf of every woman and man
Of every diaspora
Dispossessed of their respective
Ancestral homelands,
I am fighting for the language
That was taken.
When I have readied myself,
And the time does come,
I will abandon the imprisonment
Of the oppressor’s tongue.
I hereby declare and demand
My right to exist as I am.
May we all feel native soil
Beneath our feet.
May we breathe.
May we be liberated.
May there be peace.
***
The premier West Coast Hevria event is coming! Wednesday, January 27th, 2016, at 7:30 p.m., I will be performing with Darshan Project at Pico Shul in Los Angeles. Please join us for a night of music, poetry, and happy fun times.
