Say What You Mean
“I like you,” she says
“You are a very good girl. You are my friend.”
I can only smile and nod my head,
Not knowing quite what to say.
She continues,
“I have something on my mind
I want to tell you, but I do not have the words.”
I tell her it’s alright,
What I don’t say is that I wouldn’t expect her to,
Because she speaks Amharic
I also tell her she has learned English quickly,
What I don’t tell her is how beautiful she makes it sound,
With her long “oo’s”, soft “r’s” and “t’s”, hardly there “h’s”, and complete sincerity
She smiles at me
And for the first time explains how hard it has been, though not directly
She just wishes to speak as well as me
I can only imagine how frustrating it would be
To not be able to say what you mean
“I like you a lot,” she says
I don’t know what to say except,
“I like you too,” but I say it with all of me
‘Say what you mean and mean what you say’
Except we’re afraid to be misinterpreted some way
With words gaining double meaning
And as common gestures become demeaning
“I’m so sorry,” I said to him, “I’m so so so sorry.”
Embarrassed, and trying to fill the silence
I babble
“I shouldn’t have said what I said”
Thoughts crowd the tempest in my head
All of them are broken
All of them I leave unspoken
“I hope you’re not angry at me,
I understand why you would be”
I stammer on awkwardly
Till he reassuringly said to me, “It’s alright what you did,
We all say something stupid”
He looked back, and away from me, and I knew
I would never be able to take all my words back
‘Say what you mean and mean what you say’
Seems all but forgotten today
With words being thrown around carelessly
And things being spoken silently
“You’re funny,” she says to me
And laughs all the more
And laughs beautifully
For once again I forgot
Again
And for the life of me I wish I could remember
“You’re funny,” she says, somewhat brokenly,
And I laugh as I realize the joke is on me
She has cerebral palsy, so her body can’t do things as quickly
I would try to finish what she was trying to say
But my words only got in the way
One of the things she taught most to me
Was to listen ever so patiently
She talked about so many things,
But I’ll never forget what she said that day
And the one thing I wish to say
That I hope she’ll never forget one day:
“Thank you. You’re so lovely and full of laughter
Thank you for being such a good friend to me”
Maybe we all should learn
From the girl who speaks Amharic
And the girl who has cerebral palsy
To say what we mean and mean what we say
To speak eternity
There might not be another chance another day