temporary

My sister put me to work with a niece washing clothes. In reality I am a happy slave. I have my sister, niece, food and a safe place to sleep. I make some money. An Australian girl gave me a scooter. I dress nice.

My sister started selling massage service. If I meet a good man, which is rare, like Thorny, I let him touch me because I trust he’ll take care of me. 

I need help. 

My job has no emotional connection. I have the power to say NO. I have a 5th degree black belt. I’ve killed more men with silence than you can imagine. I tell aggressive idiots they can get laid somewhere else. Go find a beer girl. Flash your cash honey.

I do all the washing, ironing, and massages. My sister pockets the money. I make small tips. She sits around admiring herself in mirrors, playing with her 2-year old daughter. Talking rubbish on her cell.

I am a voiceless voice of quiet resignation. 

Shhh. I have a new secret short term lover while Thorny is home in OZ. I am easy going with a willingness to share honest emotional connections. 

No commitment is a temporary abstraction. 

silent love

I am a beautiful deaf mute woman.

I speak sign love, sing, dance and laugh in Cambodia. Spoiled whining children and small adults run around screaming. I can’t hear them. It’s a blessing. I read lips screaming I want food. I want love. I want education. I want medicine.

I had a dream. A grandfather in Laos is an idiot. He runs his truck. It’s his solace. I love the smell of pollution on Sunday morning. His daughter burns plastic trash. Parents and children inhale fumes.

Ancestor worship. In Vietnam it’s incense.

In Laos it’s exhaust and burning plastic. Here it’s cow shit. Youngsters respect their elders. Shut your mouth. Do not say anything to venerable grandfather. Birds sing with hammers. I feel vibrations.

Their traditional silence kills them softly. Truth is a powerful weapon. Most people are afraid of truth. Hearing, speaking, realizing truth entails risk. Daring is not fatal. Truth is a deaf mute seer in Cambodia.

Everything here is a secret. Shhh fingers on my lips. I am secretly married to a false dream of going to Australia with Thorny. He is 50, married with family there. He works for an NGO in Cambodia. He builds fake bamboo homes. He plays my father figure and rescuer. 

I come from a poor rural Cambodian village. I was the last of 11 children. I am 28. I came here with my sister, 32. She got pregnant by a married New Zealand man. She had a daughter. She pretends to be married. It’s all show here. He sends her a monthly handout, pays the electricity. 

My sister set up a hair salon business in a temple tourist town. It fell through. Salons are a dime a dozen. Thousands of undereducated poor passive girls don’t read or dream. They cut. Do their nails. They digit phones.

Staring at mirrors is their fate. Some moonlight as beer girls and hostesses. Where is Mr. ATM? No money, no honey. 

Vietnamese plant rice. Cambodians watch it grow. Laotians listen to it grow.

weave

namaste on new year, new day, new moment.

elf sits with boua mon, a weaver in a village across the mekong. they met in 2010. she is gentle and kind.

her smiling laughter is infectious. women sit, sharing food, stories.

she looms silk threads. click, clack. click-clack. diamond designs. abundance.

 

hyohakusha

wow, said elf, what an amazing year, all 365 dreams. we celebrated beginning in cambodia.

in march we celebrated snow altitudes in nepal. in cambodia we celebrated summer heat. laos called in fall and wa-la, presto magician, here we is. again. 

once upon a whisper paid attention to sensations. a heavy deluge increased density of murmurs. ideal voices sat silent.

it's hyohakusha, said a zen monk named basho. one who moves without direction.

metta.

alone

one morning Elf sat near a fire in Laos.

silent barefoot Buddhist monks wrapped in orange walked past accepting alms from women.

tourists scrambled pointing and shooting.

a woman in white using a cane approached a corner.

her staff tested curb height. she hestitated. she stayed on the street feeling secure and balanced. 

she passed a fire.