sign language

He comes to me in the heat of the day. I welcome him with my dark eyes gesturing a fingertip on lips...quiet. We share the present. My passion is deep and strong. My language - a smile, brown eyes, calloused hands, worn fingers and rolling sounds whisper: 

time

relationships

secrets

fear

family

passion

laughter

sadness

a heart

I dream traditional ignorant silence kills everyone, the others. Truth is a powerful weapon. People are afraid of truth. When I express truth I don’t have to remember what I said. I say what others are afraid to say.

I am an anarchist, a linguistic magician.

Speaking, living and realizing truth with beauty entails risk. If you want to do amazing things you must take amazing risks. Daring is not fatal. I am truth incarnate. I am an objective mirror, free of dust.

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

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

When I dance I am alive.