My Own Tongue

A poem about missing speaking my mother tongue in an international language environment.

Tonight, I want to play freely in my own tongue

I want to write in the Afrikaans that I learnt at my mother's knee

I want to hear the slackening rhythm of long vowels

I want to cheekily chop the air on k and t

I want to shape my mouth around shifty diphthongs

I want to feel the raspy scouring of a g at the back of my throat

and I want to roll r after forceful r from my tongue like waves onto a rocky beach