Translation

They speak, their words not like my own
Their tongues tapping against teeth and rhythmic lips and vocal chords stretching
Of course you wouldn't understand
Unless you were one of them, and talked like them.

Unless you could understand them like I did
Understand them more than my siblings could
Because I watched the shows from the homeland with them
While the other two went off to do equations and kill virtual zombies.

And when they speak, they speak tiredly
Work was exhausting, English was learned as a second language
They assume that the children still don't know the meanings of words
Or, at least, that I did.

So when they speak, they don't use hushed tones
They don't use code words and hand motions
They don't hide behind doors
They speak in plain sight, words lost to the minds who cannot follow.

One day while they spoke I was eating bread
"The Bread of Salt" was the official name, translated
It was warm and melted in my mouth
The warmth of the hearth still inside it.

I could hear talking
In my mind I decoded the words
Automatically, of course--it was second nature
But I heard

I heard it all, perfectly translated inside my mind
Perfectly understood, perfectly known
Immediately I knew I wasn't supposed to know
But I knew while my siblings sat with blank stares

The feeling eats my stomach and pulls my heart down
The feeling that I couldn't tell anyone
What I just understood while eating bread
The terrible secret I learned that day.