Code-Switch

I heard myself say it

and knew it was wrong—

the word familiar but arriving

like it was someone else's song.

The client didn't notice. Probably.

But I felt the shift,

the way you feel

when stepping from one room into another,

when the air is different.

My own voice came back through the speaker,

unfamiliar,

like it was traveling from somewhere

I'd never been,

a place I could pretend to be.

At home I don't sound like this.

At home my vowels are wider, wider still.

My consonants have a particular roughness.

I sound like my mother,

like I'm from somewhere specific,

like I have roots.

But in that meeting,

in that call with strangers,

I was smooth.

Professional.

A person from no particular place,

no particular mother,

no language that lives in the throat

before English takes it.

I kept talking

because I couldn't stop the shift,

couldn't tell them:

That's not actually how I say that.

That's not actually me.

My own voice didn't recognize itself.

And I was already too deep,

already too far gone,

already becoming someone new.