I do not need this second tongue.
It is cumbersome, lying here beside the first. It doesn’t fit comfortably
In my mouth.
Mostly it is dormant, it lets the other do the talking
With well practiced and eloquent phrases, easy compliments, fluid justifications,
such a skill for telling people what they expect to hear.
Such obedience.
This second, this growth, this tumour
It twitches sometimes
With what it wants to say. When I forget
To control it says the words the first knew to hide, and only when
I wake to this fact does the trusted of the two
Recommence.
But it’s so hard to talk with two tongues
And they fall haplessly over each other like children on new legs-
Old legs?
Knocked knees like an ancient struggle,
These ties are knots of Adam.
Someone take a knife to it, this accursed apparition,
This forked demon that dwells within my as of yet appeasing cavern
Make it cease!
I would do so myself but I can only bite down so hard-
I would ask you but that would be admitting
That it had anything to say.