she held my tongue,
melding it into undulating syllables
with her maternal touch
it was a caress carried by the light wind,
lifting the murmurs of a foreign land,
frayed with torn words.
she wove these threads into steady sentences,
a rope anchoring me in this strange sea
i harbored myself in her familiar walls.
her warmth: reviving forgotten vestiges
her tongue: a vine winding through timeless rivers and scarred mountains
her voice: awakening the sun,
drying my cries,
its blooming light deepening my shadows as I parted with her sacred chambers.
Adithi Raghavan is an Indian-American writer and poet who currently resides amongst the native evergreen trees in her home state of Washington. She is a high school junior who enjoys writing poetry and researching East Asian mythology. When she’s not at her desk, you can find her at her local farmers market browsing assortments of all things honey and lavender. Her recent work has been published in the Apprentice Writer and various school publications.