Displacement

My own face on the screen,

mid-sentence, and I heard it—

my voice saying something

in a way I don't recognize.

The word doesn't belong to me.

My mouth shapes it like a borrowed thing,

like I'm wearing someone else's jaw.

I sound like the place I live now,

not like the place I'm from.

My mother heard it too.

She didn't say anything,

but there was a pause,

and I knew she knew—

I'm not home anymore.

Not even in my own mouth.

The Rs are flatter.

The vowels are different.

I'm standing in my apartment

three states away,

and my voice has moved

without me, has left

the old country of my tongue

and settled somewhere new,

somewhere that doesn't know

my family's songs,

doesn't know the shape

of my grandmother's words.

You can't go back to your own voice.

You can only go forward,

wearing this new one,

this accent I didn't choose,

that chose me

the way displacement does—

slowly, then all at once,

then so completely

you forget you ever sounded different.

My mother is looking at me

through the screen,

listening to the stranger

who used to be her daughter,

and I'm looking at her

not knowing what to do

with the fact that

I'm already gone.