Only English Poem by Prabhakar Subramaniam

When the 'English only' rule

Was enforced in school

With a fine levy

For slipping into the mother tongue,

With a foolscap as added penalty

Many of us went dumb,

Spoke in gestures,

Resorted to notes,

Found we couldn't chat with friends,

Struggled to find equivalents

For every day words,

Simple messages like

'Bring the book tomorrow! '

To a classmate

Took a while to string together.

We looked forward to the closing bell

And when it rang, we burst forth

Like water from a barrage

And unleashed the words

We were born into

In a delightful torrent

And spoke and spoke as if we had found our voice again.