Little Words
Charlie spoke with
a tongue that didn’t belong to him.
He was a fifthteen year old rocker cholo
that sounded like he held
pages of the dictionary in between his teeth .
There was no slang on his breath.
I watched words cascade
down his conversation,
like stars streaking across an otherwise lightless night.
I was eight years old
It was a language I’d never heard before.
But I knew it was English because I understood
the prepositions that braided his sentences together.
( I didn’t know they were called prepositions then.)
We called them little words
Iike “in”
or “to”
or “a”
or “nah”
All his homies expressed themselves with little words.
They used to ask him
“ Aye, Charlie, why you always talking rich and shit?”
You live in the projects just like the rest of us.”
As if certain palabras were only reserved
for those who could afford to stretch
their mouths wider than
people who had less to eat.
Charlie would laugh and say
“I read my brothers.
there is a freedom that lives there.”
They would laugh
Take a swig of their beers
and respond with a “Fuckin’ Charlie”
Not me.
I heard the whisper beneath his breath
Begging to become a scream.
A drunken slur that broke me open
my ears remembered how to listen when I heard him speak
It inspired in me a wanting.
A need to know how to make music with my words
Something deep in my being
Heeded what I pieced together
The message i deciphered
in between the spaces in all those little sentences.
A truth,
that little words never belonged in my mouth.
Frank Escamilla aka The Bus Stop Prophet
https://www.busstopprophet.com/
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