Fluency

I didn’t want to learn the language. To conjugate
between victim and survivor. The words
sandy between my teeth. In court
I became the plaintiff,
the liar. I heard myself described
like an animal under observation.
I was groomed. This is textbook behavior
of a predator. I became unnamed. A minor
seeking justice from a jury of his peers.
People told me they were praying for me
to start telling the truth. They called me
a test of his faith. I grew my skin
thick as observation glass,
tried to tempter the taps of cross examination.
I didn’t know how to explain
what a twelve-year-old body doesn’t know.

It took me three years to speak
with my new tongue. I printed
out a dictionary and gave it
to my mother: hope
we could learn to speak again.
A single rock won’t change
the course of a river.
Ten years later, I go home for a visit
and see him in the grocery store. Abandon
the cart and sit for an hour
in the car. My mother calls
to see what is taking so long,
asks why it still bothers me. My father
tells me not to hold a grudge. I try
to tell him I don’t mind hurting.
My translation clumsy, I tell him
I deserve to hurt. He doesn’t
understand. I switch back
to my native tongue.
We sit in silence.

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Meredith Herndon (she/her) is a writer and editor living in Virginia. She has an MFA from UC Davis, where she won the Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Award sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. Her poems have been published in The Seventh Wave, Faultline, Sundog Lit, Copper Nickel, poets.org, and elsewhere.