Tongue

I heard myself speak today
It made me want to
Cut out my tongue.

But I could not anticipate
The loss of a tongue
Or the alien muscles I had
cultivated myself
As an unsuspecting replacement

The loss of teeth
is felt in bloodied gaps
Under a restless, rolling tongue
But a missing tongue isn't
detected
Until you play back
That video daring
Your brother to down
A wasabi ball
That sets his tongue alight
And you realise yours is
no longer there to combust
Until you mouth your own
Name into a silver backed mirror
and are only handed
Germanic dissonance

I have recently been
writing
Of what the virus has taken
Taking inventory:
A tongue trained to never
be lost
Half of self
Company that now only hears
The invasion; foreign
Taste lacing my mouth

Knuckles bloodied banging
on plexiglass screens 
Trying to shatter your way
Through;
watch your Mother's parched lipstick
lips pucker sweetly
O, like in the English orange—
Incapable
of even miming your
own name.

You breed scales, slit
eyes, and forked tongues
and are taken aback
At your own
Mutilation
floored that they would not
rest at the kohinoor, or severed
Muslin thumbs—
But take your forks and
your fangs too
Then charge you for it
in decades of proficiency tests

cut out your tongue
bottle it
To later chuck into the ocean
And wait
for it to grow back
as your own.

Amreeta Lethe is a Sub editor at Star Books and Literature and the Editor-in-Chief at The Dhaka Apologue. Find them @lethean._ on Instagram.