Our First Mother Tongue Was Emotions

Before we spoke, we wept.

Before we knew words,
before anyone handed us a name,
before we were told how to behave,
we felt.

We cried to be held.
We screamed to be seen.
We laughed from our bellies.
We shuddered when we were afraid.
We reached for love
without asking for permission.

No one taught us how.
It was instinct. It was sacred. It was our first language.

Our first mother tongue was emotion.
Raw. Immediate.

We didn’t regulate.
We didn’t reframe.
We didn’t explain.

We were the emotion.
Pure, untamed, unapologetically alive.

This is why we ache.

Not because we are broken.
But because we were never meant
to live this far from our emotional self.

We were never supposed to forget
how to speak in feeling.

We were never supposed to …
Mute the cry.
Swallow the rage.
Numb the longing.

But we did.
We all did.
Because it kept us safe.

And we can only begin the return.

Not by learning something new,
but by remembering something ancient.

Something organic to our bodies.

You’ve got to experience

how much
you have loved.

how deeply
you have felt.

how fiercely
you have cared.

and how
you’ve longed
to finally
live.

You can do it!

You got this.