Words

Words aren't my thing.

When I need what others need from words I find the rhythm and the melody, and dance. It's always been this way, as long as I can recall.

Even when I first changed bodies to the disposable puppets of osteoplast and recycled biomass that I mostly use when I'm flying, the first thing I did was try dance steps. The feet weren't strong enough, the hip flexors not flexible enough, so I made notes for my clone profile.

Except that now I'm not dancing, and the things that come out in dance have nowhere to go. So Auntie Ellie has suggested I try words.

Words, words, words....

We've fought too much over words. I should be thinking about "freedom" and "self-determination", but just now I'm thinking about "I think I love you, m'dear". The start of our first fight. About words and actions and misunderstandings. About sitting on his bed with the quilt the aunts had given him wrapped around me as he stormed out the door to go get drunk.

I'd tried to tell him about mother. About the illusions of love she traded in, and how the words made me feel hollow even though I knew he meant them well. By then he was too hurt to listen or care.

We made it up. I learnt to call him "love". I learnt -- again -- not to talk about some things.

Actions matter more than words, but the words give meaning to the actions. 

I'm thinking too much. Home in body but not in spirit. And the body is so strange: so tight and tender and richly ripe. So transforming. So creating. So, so tired. I'm becoming something else, my boundaries shifting and blurring. Sometimes I just want to cry.

But I'm surrounded by the fabric of clan life where there are dramas that need action, unlike mine. Kerem's boy is crawling and into everything. Auntie Yana is dying, slowly, her bones crumbling and organs failing. The feud between Auntie Mara and Uncle Ashlar -- nurtured these twenty years -- is in one of its hot phases. And with my interstellar riches I've turned Paiho into a building site, foundations and laser lines marking out the shape of the surgical unit and clinic that I hope will be finished before any more here have need of it. These things bring me back when it seems I've flown too deeply into the void. The jostlings show me my edges even as those edges shift.

But still, ancestors and erendati, there are things I would learn from you. Not about the clan or exile, now, but about this strange pairing and its consequences. 

Will this child be healthy? Will I carry it to term? 

How do you say both "I miss you so much it hurts" and "I'm making a life on my own"? 

How do you hope without expectation?

How will he know unless I tell him?