The poem
My mother's language has two words for rain —one for the kind that asks permission,one for the kind that doesn't.
I have only the one word in this language,so I have to say soft rain, hard rain,heavy rain, like I am translatingsomething that was never meant to need it.
I think this is what faith is too:one word doing the work of several,until you meet someone who grew upwith the finer version and realizehow much you have been flatteningjust to be understood.
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1Mara Okonkwo2026-09-20
"Flattening just to be understood" is the whole poem in five words, and I'd almost want you to end there instead of adding the line after it — the poem's argument is complete a beat before the actual ending, and the last line is you explaining the metaphor you already built. Trust the two words for rain to have made the case; I think it's stronger one line shorter.