I grew up in a country where English is spoken and Spanish is an unknown language in which it entangles every molecule of my being. Spanish was my first tongue but as my time goes on I am forgetting more and more words. It may not be forgotten as fast as water pours, but it’s still very slowly escaping my grasp as my left hand tries to catch it once more. English was never a taste my tongue wanted to try but yet I was forced to take the thorns to my mouth.

Those thorns now entangle, and grow in and out of my mouth as I cry out loud for someone to give me back my native tongue, to give me back the words I knew. I yell for the forgiveness de mi madre mia, for being such a foolish child, for chasing el hechizo of these thorns. But instead she just shakes her head and walks away, knowing that el hechizo has taken over her once beautifully sculpted child.

Sometimes this hechizo tires me and makes me sad as I stand and watch myself in awe as I forget how to speak. I even start to wonder if knowing Spanish is my true curse. Would el hechizo even be part of me if I didn’t know Spanish? Or would I have become one with it from the day I was birthed?

But even so I run tirelessly to try and catch that part of me that holds my missing pieces and to get away from the darkness I so created. You are to think you should be astonished for your creation but instead all I feel is embarrassment, resentment, and anger. 

This endless chase has gotten to a point where I have lost count of the number of times where I had to use a translator to reassure me on how to spell certain words or if I’m wording things correctly as I write in my native language from time to time. And it’s a sad reality in which some of us bilingual kids have in a sense, come to terms with. The terms in which we forget certain words and sound like fools stumbling to find words that we mix with thorns.

It’s not easy knowing that there’s a possibility of losing a big part of you from submitting yourself to this “perfect language” we call English. But I blame this country for shaming me and the language I use and love! And I blame this country for shaming my parents, my ancestors, and their land in which they have planted beautiful raízes in and brought over to this ugly country of opportunities! And all just to be told their language is not acceptable, to be told that they must change, including myself, just so we don’t sound mexican. 

As I fall asleep under the darkness of my room, I fear that the thorns may cut off my native tongue for good as I dream. Pero antes de dormir, I slip my hand in my mouth, small as they can be, and rip some of the thorns out to let my tongue breathe. Yo respiro, y me miro al espejo, viendo como la sangre sale de mi boca. I know my wounds won’t heal as fast as water pours pero tengo esperanzas that someday this curse will wear itself out.

And I smile, saying, 

“El inglés no es mi lengua nativa. Y Nunca lo será.”