How I Unlearned My Accent
By Sam Wilson
after the giggling classmates
would mock my vowels
and carve them into jokes,
after a lesson
where I was begged to
“speak properly”
or after the laughter
to repeat my a’s and o’s
gone broad
a goal with no hole
after the elocution
on the way home.
I learned to swallow
the gravel in my throat,
now even my shadow pretends to
talk in forced Received Pronunciaton.
now, when I call home,
my mother says I sound “posh.”
The word hangs between us,
a brick in the wall we don’t name.
I want to tell her:
I didn’t lose it.
I buried it alive
some nights,
I still feel its teeth
edging their way out
making my jaw hurt
a mouthful of coal and stones.
Bio: Sam is an educator and amateur poet who can often be found with his head buried in a novel (or two). When not reading or writing, he enjoys travelling, hiking, eating spicy food, and spending time with his wife and their two cats.
