Learning the Language

We grow into who
we are. Step by tiny step
into a future laid out
before us like the language
we would grow to speak
and learn to unlearn
and then relearn,
despite our rants
and our raves,
in spite of ourselves.

No. The first raw taste
that sits on the tongue
like beets. Too red, too
root-filled to ignore.
No again. This time
the unsavory bits of chopped
spinach, a green we swallow
in reluctance. We have not yet
learned the loveliness of
green and No, nor the unbridled
joy of sating ourselves
with tuberous things. Things that grow
underground in the dark, wet
places we are yet to know.

And then, one day, a normal
day in most every aspect
of the word normal, all of our oral
expectations are met, and it’s
a resounding yes! as mother
pokes the spoon in. An unspoken,
understood yes! that fills the room.
Yes, I will eat that. And this. And more
than you will ever guess in your long life,
Mother. Eat, masticate, at times
regurgitate. Mess myself up in ways
you never expected, you who followed
the step-by-step.

I have grown into an occasional
bite, shunned an entire meal.
I have learned to love the observed.
A bottle of merlot, a fifth of tequila,
a shot of gin and tonic. These
are the substantial elements
of my existence.

Step by step, I fight my way
through briars no one else sees.
I drop from a pine fifty-feet tall
and come out unscathed. I watch
the slender bend of my ankle
get chewed up in the spokes
of a wheel lost in time.
But man have I grown!
The likes of growth so seldom
seen in all of the animal kingdom.
A regular anomaly of sorts,
my body an organism, my brain
a refugee. My use of language
once again relegated to a simple
Yes, a fitful No.