Dear Descendant, I/we offer Water

The word for water, um
The word for melting, um
The word for tears, um mat, water from the eyes
The word for spit, um biah, sticking water

My grandfather taught me to curse.
To talk back.
To start by being no longer able to hold onto
A rage that tries to eat you up from within.
To spit it out and expel it.
Phuit. Phuit ka sabuit.
(Spit. Spit away the curse)

Before you melt into tears, also know that the fluids in your body are charged.
Spit. Talk Back. A story.

A sunny noon near the end of summer. She will be the first to read. Her hands will grow to write, but now they trail scratches of skidded red skin. Itching thighs and itching knees. Chubby knees and thighs. She is 6 years old. Seated on her mother’s lap, her itch feels like a lifetime. In front of a hut, mother, and itchy child, squatting on grass. Soon a stocky, old woman appears. She looks at the child, “So where have you been?” She speaks strangely, half spit, half words. The child responds quickly, shy and afraid, “I don’t know.” She says, “we need to know where we’ve been.” Half spit, half grunt. Silence. Mother grabs her thighs and points to the marks. “A curse” and a round of sighs. Always a curse before the child forgets her tongue. Before she takes a foreigner’s tongue. Left shin, the deepest red, a circle the size of a one-rupee coin, the inner splotch like the foreign Queen’s head. Red and spreading like how tea spills on a morning newspaper. The old lady gets out a small, wrapped leaf from the folds of her wrapped skirt. Opening it, she then taps her wrinkled finger on a little white wet cream of limestone. She draws a white circle around the spot. Then begins… spoken words. Words jumbled into sounds, through more spit, anger, a swear word. The child giggles. Magic. Less and less itchy, less and less red. In 3 days, no spot, no itch, no circle. She went to school the next week. Her a, b, c, d, e, f, g… We wanted to learn, we let go of our curses. A grandmother remembers.

To talk back, to spit.
The charged water on your tongue.
Dear Descendant, I offer you rage.