The poet struggles to write. Her muse is hiding. Not forever, not if she can help it, but the words are gone for now, which is its own form of misery. Because the thoughts she can鈥檛 express still feel so beautiful in her mind.
鈥淚 try,鈥 Felisa Hervey said midway through a Monday morning speech therapy session.
Books she could no longer read lined the walls of her 蜜柚直播 home. A brand-new diploma from the doctorate she may never use sat underneath the dissertation that took her four years to complete. An unfinished draft of her memoir, 鈥淢y Battle for Language,鈥 stared out from her laptop. Felisa knew what she wanted to write, but the words were trapped inside. 鈥淏eautiful language,鈥 she said. 鈥淟ike 鈥 ugh.鈥
鈥淚 know what you鈥檙e supposed to do,鈥 replied her rehab specialist, a soft-spoken young woman named Jacque Penunuri. She had tried to fill in the gaps. 鈥淏ut I鈥檓 not a creative writer. I don鈥檛 think I鈥檒l ever learn.鈥
People are also reading…
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know,鈥 Felisa said. 鈥淲e鈥檒l see.鈥
鈥淏ecause I know you鈥檙e supposed to use beautiful language and metaphors and descriptive words,鈥 Jacque said. 鈥淏ut doing it is a whole different thing.鈥
鈥淵eah,鈥 Felisa said. 鈥淗ard to do.鈥
It used to be so easy.
Felisa, 35, built her life on the beauty of language. She spoke six of them, picking up new tongues as her family moved around the world. In Chile she absorbed Spanish. In Kazakhstan she force-fed herself vocabulary lessons, because learning Kazakh seemed like the only way to make friends. Along the way she collected pieces of Arabic and Russian. When she moved to Afghanistan to volunteer and study, it was only natural that she picked up Dari, the country鈥檚 Persian dialect. It sounded so poetic.
All her life, Felisa used poetry to navigate a path through the world. She published her first poem before she was a teenager, and she never stopped writing. She loved the sharpness of short poems. The way so few words can hold such great meaning.
When the Air Force deployed her back to Afghanistan, in 2010, poetry helped her make sense of the place. She climbed onto rooftops whenever she could, retreating up high to write about war and love and the space between them. But she was most valuable on the ground, where she built a presence that renowned general H.R. McMaster called 鈥渆xtraordinary.鈥
Because she was an American, in uniform, who spoke fluent Dari, the military relied on her to connect with sympathetic locals. She became a stop-on-the-street figure, recognized for her willingness to sit in Afghan living rooms and bake bread on Afghan TV. She also published books of translated poetry, and one on how the military could reach the Afghan people.
She wrote under the pen name Farzana Marie, borrowing the Persian word for wise.
Afghanistan enraptured her. All of it. The poetry. The mountains and the hospitality and the people, so kind and strong. The place became a part of her. When her deployment ended, she left the Air Force and went back to Kabul, first to study Afghan female poets, then to work with NATO. Her dissertation at the University of 蜜柚直播 inched toward completion.
Then, in August 2015, her world went black.
A massive, mysterious, out-of-nowhere stroke forced Felisa out of Afghanistan and into a Dubai hospital, unable to feel her fingers or speak her own name. She couldn鈥檛 read. She couldn鈥檛 write.
Her languages 鈥 all six of them 鈥 were gone.
鈥淪hattered,鈥 she said.
She was 31 years old, with an all-consuming case of aphasia.
The disorder darkens language, but not intelligence. The piece of Felisa鈥檚 brain that processes speech, reading and writing was destroyed. 鈥淒ead,鈥 she said. But the rest is still intact. She understands most speech, as long as she can see the person鈥檚 lips. Movies make sense with subtitles.
鈥淟oss of language, not intellect,鈥 Felisa said. She pointed at her head. 鈥淔ine. Smart. But I can鈥檛 talk.
鈥淚ronic, no?鈥
There is no cure for aphasia. Only the full-time work of recovery.
Felisa returned to 蜜柚直播 with a rehab goal and a void in her soul. Her work, her education, her hobbies and her most deeply held beliefs 鈥 all of it was rooted in language. Without it, nothing felt the same.
鈥淚 always feel frustrated, angry and sad about the loss,鈥 she said in a video filmed two years after the stroke. 鈥淚 am livid. Since my stroke, I feel that God has disappeared. I hope that he is listening.鈥
Even now, after three and a half laborious years, five of her languages remain dark. Felisa figures that only 35 percent of her English has returned. Gaps cover entire parts of speech: Verb tenses are a problem. So are prepositions. She鈥檚 left to speak in loosely connected phrases, without the words to express where she is 鈥 or where she鈥檚 going.
The future is frazzled. She hasn鈥檛 applied for even simple jobs, because she can鈥檛 manage the paperwork. A disability check pays her rent, and for extra cash, she sells hand-decorated silicone mug covers. They鈥檙e all the rage in Asia.
She can鈥檛 translate. She can鈥檛 write. It took four years to finish the last 20 percent of her dissertation, because Felisa had to dictate her ideas in pieces. She successfully defended her work in August, and received a doctorate she can鈥檛 use.
鈥淟ater,鈥 she said. 鈥淣ot now. Later. I am healing.鈥
One day, she promised herself, she鈥檒l speak in full sentences. She鈥檒l read without having to follow an audiobook. And she鈥檒l write. The muse will return. Poetry will again flow through her fingers and onto the page, where the world can see the thoughts that still fill her mind. One day.
Until then, she still needed some help.
As their Monday session wound down, Felisa searched her laptop for a poem she wrote years ago, about war and returning to a new version of normal. The poem references a play, 鈥淢other Courage and Her Children,鈥 in which a young woman saves her village from an invasion, even though she couldn鈥檛 speak.
鈥淩ead, please,鈥 Felisa said, and Jacque began to read.
Felisa scooted closer. She nodded along to the words she鈥檇 written back then, before her life changed forever. The poem had its own rhythm. The words had life. Her soul rested between those lines.
When Mother Courage said, 鈥楽he still suffers from pity,鈥 was she talking about you? Me? Or the girl who could not speak?
鈥淢e,鈥 Felisa said softly.
鈥淵ou?鈥 Jacque asked. 鈥淭he girl who could not speak?鈥
A word formed on Felisa鈥檚 lips. It hung there. She sounded out each syllable with a roll of her left shoulder, as if she were pumping out the words.
鈥淧redicted,鈥 she managed to say. 鈥淔oreshadowed.鈥
Jacque nodded.
The room was silent.
鈥淏efore,鈥 Felisa continued. 鈥淲hat? Weird.鈥
鈥淵eah,鈥 Jacque said. 鈥淭hat is weird.鈥
They turned back to the poem. Jacque kept reading, and Felisa鈥檚 shining eyes followed her to the final line:
Did you ever notice that the girl who could not speak shouted loudest at the end?
Felisa Hervey
