Just The Way I Say It

I asked for 'soda,' plain and flat.

She blinked at me, and that was that.

'Where are you really from?' she said,

a question buzzing in my head.

Like my tongue was a spy, a cheat,

or syllables just couldn't meet

the standard, clean and washed and new.

My vowels stretch, sometimes they do.

They flatten out when I'm too tired,

the sharp edge of a word acquired

and then unlearned. A border blur,

and in that space, I'm never sure

who speaks. Just me, I guess, or not.

This language, is the one I got.