My tongue used to be made up of copra,
salivating oils that indicate who I am and where
I’m from. A place where coconut husks roof
people’s mouths. Instrument to ignite brittle vowels
and wavy coir tones. When my people speak,
one can hear songs that carry the warmth of the sun,
and the slightly sweet taste of freshly-made buko juice.
But just as how prone the coconut is to breaking
when it falls, my mouth started showing cracks
a few months after I moved out of the province.
The city’s asphalt sealed away the secretions of my
tongue. Mistook it as one of its many highways.
It made me hate the way I spoke that showed how I
know the routes that carabaos in my province take,
the start of the season of atis, or the sourness of katmon.
Guilt seeps in whenever I return home and I hear
my family and friends speak, and I start to imagine tall
coconut trees, the same ones that used to shade me when
I came home from school. When that happens, my mouth
begins to itch. I grab a sturdy rugged bunót, place it
in my tongue and I do my best to scrub, scrub, and scrub.
