Member-only story
I stutter and repeat my self because I don’t believe that you are listening, so I am afflicted: perpetually on rewind, repeat, pause, repeat, rewind.
You took away my voice, though to be honest I don’t believe I ever had one.
You told me that I could not delineate a tense, being from a so-called primitive land, how could I?
Language, I was taught at primary and secondary school, contains rules and structures: a grammar. And then, I travelled to the so-called motherland, and you said no that it was all about creative expression: one devoid of rules and structure. My tongue-tied, you said that this represented freedom from the tyranny of social hierarchy. I, however, was never free, so how then could I freely express myself?
You made me feel that I had nothing worth saying. In school, I raised my hands when I knew the answers to the questions, but, alas, I felt ignored. I sat bewildered; my only recourse was to stare into the abyss. I watched the occasional train chugging along the desolate rail tracks; they awoke me from my profound paralysis.
Before the decree of my death, you had my image cast in stone. I sat in the classroom, staring outside, questioning myself, always engaged in a double-take: take two, got myself twisted again: imprisoned in the harness of self-doubt, with you tugging at the reins: rewind, repeat, pause, rewind, repeat, pause, rewind: ad infinitum. Still, you did not diminish my curiosity, my love of knowledge. And, so during the weekends and school holidays, I spent my spare time engrossed in the books and journals at the local library.
