(wave whooshing)
(soft music)
- I go quiet for days,
(gentle music)
I turn the color of mirrors, (gentle music)
I turn the color of smoke. (gentle music)
Men tell me sometimes, that blue becomes me.
(gentle music)
When I answer, my voice is hoarse from disuse.
(gentle music) (waves whooshing)
I am afraid of my body and the ways that it fails me.
(gentle music)
I faint. (gentle music)
- Hey.
- Okay, how did it go.
- His hands were (women chattering)
(gentle music)
- A woman on the subway platform catches me floating
into the tracks. (gentle music)
I become the color blue. (gentle music)
I don't like to be touched. (gentle music)
I wonder why more people have not been kidnapped
by taxi drivers.
- Excuse me, how do you say my name in Arabic?
- Tom
- Excuse me how do you say my name in Farsi?
- Tom.
- Excuse me, how do you say my name in Urdu?
- Tom?
- white men ask me to say their names in Arabic.
Ask me where I'm really from. (gentle music)
I'm six months returned from Sudan.
Henna fading to look like burns dusted up my arms.
I bleed and can't stop bleeding.
I speak and my mouth is my biggest wound.
(gentle music)
(wave whooshing) (gentle music)
Every language is a borrowed joke.
I catch myself complimenting strangers on their English.
I am six months return from incense smoke
to soften the taste of river water.
(gentle music)
Incense burnt to avert the evil eye.
(gentle music)
I see a possessed woman scream when a prayer is read,
her eyes the color of smoke.
(gentle music)
And mine is a story older than water.
(gentle music)
- Hey where you from? (wave whooshing)
- Here. (wave whooshing)
- No, you're foreigners. (wave whooshing)
- ♪ Oh oh ♪
♪ In the muddy water we're falling ♪
♪ Oh oh ♪
♪ In the muddy water we're crawling ♪