Isabella Peralta is a writer, editor, and educator from the Philippines. Her work explores identity, diaspora, love, and belonging. As an advocate of racial and cultural diversity in literature and new media, she has worked for various literary organizations and platforms that champion underrepresented voices, including the Global Migrant Festival, Ayesha Pande Literary, and We Need Diverse Books. Her writing has appeared in publications such as HyphenAlluvium, Ricepaper, and Postscript.

 

a history of pronunciation

 

you chased younger sister around the province

stringing letters together like your mother’s only bracelet

your collection of words spilling from pockets:

the neighbor’s profanities in five-letter words,

the street vendor’s cries of balut and taho,

the seamstress’s snippets of iskandalo

 

older cousin helped to give each word a flavor

as they fizzed on your tongue like sari-sari store soda

pagsamo was durian from lola’s backyard,

sayang was sour as kalamansi rinds,

mahal dripped from your lips like sweet mango nectar —

a candy-coated profession of unrequited love

 

on your seventeenth birthday, your mouth grew numb

as the neighbor’s son kneeled, tarnished band in hand

nanay whispered promises of paradise into your hair

as you stood by the window before your rushed vows

you tossed your words into the endless sky

to become a blank canvas for the land of the free

 

three years before nanay died, your eldest daughter scribbled

on a black board as dark as the night you left home

flower and flour, tier and tire, affect and effect, altar and alter

you stumble over silent letters, tongue twisting with consonants,

each stutter a bitter seed rooting into your tongue

until the day you sacrificed speech, mouth brimming with buds