I'm Trying To Invent A Brand New Language

I’m trying to invent a brand new language
to tell you about the place that I’m from
but I can’t use words such as
female, or male,
you’d never understand how they don’t apply.
So I’ll tell you instead how I
come from a marshland:
a soft place between
two fortified nations with
impassable borders and
natal requirements for citizenship.

If I tried to explain how I’d been handed
the wrong disguise
by the border coyotes when I came to this place, or
if I told you I don’t have a green card
and that I feared discovery
every second of every day,
maybe you’d see,
maybe you’d understand, how
try as I do just to fit in,
and try as I have all of my life,
none of that matters.
I’m just not from here.

And I wish I could tell you
how lonely it is here
when nobody else can
speak my language:
a language that
even I have yet to learn.