Accent

To your ears, foreign sounds my accent

You have difficulty understanding me to some extent

I get it, and I wish you would simply ask me

To speak more slowly and deliberately

English is not my first language

Some sounds I find harder to enunciate

The way you do, but believe me when I say

I make a conscious effort to change my accent every day….

More than anything else, my accent gives me away

As a first generation immigrant, my identity it does betray

While talking to people I have seen

Frustration, anger, fascination and everything in between

I will my tongue and throat and palate

To get the elusive accent right, to enunciate

Consonants, vowels, the way you do

But I simply cannot shake off my accent, it’s true

The worst is when my accent distinctly un-American

Is misconstrued as a sign of inadequate education

And people before me start explaining things

Like they would to a child- that really stings..

**

Trying my best to change my accent

Reflects, at assimilation, my sincere attempt

But the innate accent that refuses to dissolve

Is a connection to my roots as my identity continues to evolve..