An Ode to All Languages

This poem was originally performed in 2004 at the San Francisco Poetry Slam, but in light of all the illegal immigration brouhaha and the English-as-national-language law, I found this to be quite prescient. And I'm not usually all over spoken word and stuff.

We've lost our minds
Because we value our English-speaking skills to the point where it defines us
English text and Englishmen told us our languages are inferior
So since birth we twist our lips and bend our tongues in shapes that we were never innately able to
All this to make room to expand this forced knowledge
And after all this, you think you've mastered English
When really, English has mastered you.

"An Ode to All Languages," Adriel Luis