one

Remember your tongue is made of muscle:
able to lift a whole people with the strength of its hopeful
and that the idle of words would only wake weakness
behind the prison it makes of your jaw.

two

Remind yourself that you were born like this:
The Creator of the universe
whispered breath to your being
carved a source for your speech
and gave sound to your speaking;
Nothing unused remains for long.

three

Remember the legacy giving faith to your lungs:
Those who come before you
plant songs in your sleep,
whose footsteps you mimic
who had you summoned from the mustard seed of your mother
they with hands clasped together in their desperate
waiting for some savior of their children
some prophet
worthy enough to be the outcast
in his / her homeland.

four

Your voice is more resource than reservoir:
your throat will not be made to a gas chamber of words 
fermenting like last month in your mouth,
that there will be no hindrance
in your fluency to talk
truth has a way of keeping secrets public

five

Remember the music of your insides and not how it comes out:
That your native tongue
should feel like home and hood
settled between your teeth
should bury its bags into your gums
and vow to never leave
something about the way you speak
accentuates the steep of your soul 

six

Remember the traffic 
of air in your chest, when fear froze you.
remember not being able to move or swallow or say anything.
Blank staring statue in your most off-guard moment,
how we confront ourselves in silence like hermits,
praying in a language only fit for the ears of God.

seven

Sometimes when you shout 
it only gets people to hear
how loud you are

eight

Energy is neither created nor destroyed
but transferred from word into work.
There are voids in life that cannot be filled with verbs,
and if you’re not doing anything, 
then 
you’re not doing anything.
and that nothingness 
will quiet you.

nine

Do not bite more than you can chew at once,
is the easiest way to stifle yourself.
and that out of breath behavior
will force silence down your mouth

ten

Don’t pretend you’ve found 
something precious enough
to lose yourself in pursuing it.

eleven

Whatever you commit to with words
will bind itself to you like
the hinges of your bones
and hold you accountable
despite the disclaimer you come up with.
In twelve months of being in transit
to the woman my spirit was waiting on me to become,
there’s just something about pressure
that forces you to breathe through your mouth,
and
I’ve just learnt 
how
to speak again.

poem by Anaya Jahzara