Knotted Tongues

I’ve parked parts of an 8-knot tongue somewhere in my breath

My glottal effect be global

Sound like everywhere I’ve been

Speak like 441 and Peachtree

My language is southern

The fine line between bourgeois and uppity

I am narrator of the equator’s talk

Got a whole lot of ed-ed-ed in my speech

I had text-ed it

Or I missed-ed you

I swallow letters and chew most ends to my words

I say shit that has no dictionary meaning but mean everything in context

When jit say he caught a flat

You say trisum

When fool say he missed four assignments

and still finessed the class

You say sareba

When somebody try that shit you tell em

              Ya dead

And when you gotta let something go

You gotta shake that shit

I really hate sayin’

              Bye

I’d really prefer to say

              iight, ya’ll boyz

And trust me all that shit gender neutral

Bihh is a person, place, or thing

When I hit a lick,

You always handle ya mup first

I code-switch so white people can get me and ironically

They still think my slang is what I switch to and not what I switch from

I can learn virtually any language because

The construct I’ve risen from is that of a pidgin dialect

A patois built of plight

A lingo laden in pain and survival

I’ve seen people use my heart in their mouths

As a trend or maybe to relate and even to gatekeep

The evolution of the dance

That the teeth and throat do