How I Learned the English Language (A Poem)

I don't usually bother with posting my poetry, but I see no other place for my work right now. Tell me what you think:

How I learned the English language

I.
“No, you are making words,”
my mother said.
“Not just spelling with letters.”

The tiles did not help me.
I had the edge of a spine-damaged
board to fill with
a large set of consonants.

“Learn to spell it
in your head and study what’s there.
Make it fit.”

II.
“And which one is bigger?”
Some hands went up.
My arms stayed still.

“Is it this one or the other one I’ve drawn?”
In her glasses, I see myself
choosing the wrong figure.

Quarter, third or half:
Which one has the most letters?
Another failure in math.

III.
“My friend wants to know,”
said the girl who brought
strawberry-scented air,
“if you’ll go out with her.”

My homework was not done
and I could not see a face
in any corner of the floor.

The books gave me no advice in particular on what to do.

IV.
“That was amazing.
You can really write.”
Another reading and
my first vocal critic.

A smile cannot be unsmiled;
a look become unaimed.

Her boyfriend liked the poems, too.

V.
“Read me the bird story.”
A nephew’s demands were
better than anything I had heard that day.

I read it out, gave the characters
their own voices
(meow, caahs and whistles)

And I never did get tired of the book.
Not even when I could have been at work
with my own pen and the white space
of a too-clean page.

He often slept too soon,
and I just had to
close and wait for
his dreams to start.