{"id":15,"date":"2026-05-27T20:28:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/?p=15"},"modified":"2026-05-27T20:28:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:28:27","slug":"spoken-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/?p=15","title":{"rendered":"Spoken Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Between Two Tongues\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say language lives on the tongue,
but my Albanian hides behind my teeth.
Somewhere between school bells and subway brakes,
my mother\u2019s words began missing trains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still remember the gateway greeting-
the warm mir\u00ebm\u00ebngjes<\/em> floating through the kitchen,
steam rising from strong black coffee,
spoons singing against old white cups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now my mouth stalls at family dinners.
My cousins speak fast as summer rain,
their laughter leaping across the room,
while I arrive late to every joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I trade Albanian verbs for awkward pauses.
I say \u201cthat thing\u201d instead of truth.
My grandmother\u2019s stories bloom around the table,
rich as fresh bread and mountain air,
but pieces slip through me like smoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I practice in mirrors at midnight:
rolling rough r\u2019s like river rocks,
repeating phrases, repeating prayers,
trying to stitch sound back into skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some words still survive.
Some stay sleeping.
Some stand stubborn in my throat,
small birds beating bruised wings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the grocery store, I whisper translations
between tomatoes, olives, and bright red peppers.
I name every fruit twice
like I\u2019m rebuilding a bridge plank by plank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is grief in forgetting.
A quiet consonant-crack in the chest.
A homesick hum.
A missing music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is also this-
my mother smiling when I finally answer in Albanian,
my father correcting me gently instead of laughing,
my family loving me through every broken sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So maybe fluency is not perfection.
Maybe it is persistence.
Maybe my accent is not failure
but proof that I am still reaching home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And every word I remember
is another piece of myself returning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between Two Tongues\u00a0 They say language lives on the tongue,but my Albanian hides behind my teeth.Somewhere between school bells and subway brakes,my mother\u2019s words began missing trains. I still remember the gateway greeting-the warm mir\u00ebm\u00ebngjes floating through the kitchen,steam rising from strong black coffee,spoons singing against old white cups. Now my mouth stalls at family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"send_to_group_blog":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/67191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17,"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beqiraj.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}