Language Loss
by kawrage
Language eludes me.
For a little over a year now, I’ve been sensing a gradual deterioration in my lingual proficiency.
I’d forget words; forget how to structure a sentence. I began to speak in disjointed phrases, and would often falter and stutter halfway through.
Needless to say, this has been very alarming for me. After all, without words, what am I?
———
I like to imagine that my language slips are a result of living with depression for over a decade, reasoning that to be articulate requires a grounded self.
And living as a depressed migrant queer black woman is like standing on quicksand.
——–
I don’t fear living in the closet; I fear that the closet will become my pulpit.
/kaw·reɪdʒ/ 
This!
No one and absolutely nothing prepared me for how depressing my life would be to living in white spaces as a blacker than black queer woman.
I don’t belong in the black spaces-you are too queer here- I don’t belong in the white spaces-you are too black here, and oh what’s with the accent, we can’t understand a word you say-
My queerness has become my pulpit…I am almost sad that I agree with this piece too much.