Day of Silance

You walk with you lover to the beach on a hot sunny day. You can't hold hands. You feel the sand caressing your feet, and the ocean wriggles between your toes. You see her long brownish hair swinging at every step, like an angel. You are in love. The wind kisses her lips, and the sun touches her milky skin. Her scent of fresh roses velvety in spring makes their way up to your nose. You feel more alive.
"Her hands look so soft," you say in your head. Should 1hold her hand? You want to caress her face and express your love and what she means for you. You can't. "People are watching," you whisper to yourself. Your hands are invisibly tied, so you hide them in your baggy pants. You keep walking with your head down, surrendering your eyes to the clean sand. You are a woman walking in a free country, with no freedom at all.

"We can't hold hands in public," she cries in a cold auditorium on the East Side of Los Angeles. She is soulless, shattered. Her soul does not have sex, and her spirit is ready to be exposed. She stands up with her heart in the palm of her hand and screams to everybody in the room, "1 don't like it when people call me dyke! It hurts deep inside. I'm no different from you! 1just happen to like women," Silence surrounds the room; others break into tears. A heat of curiosity and pain envelops the space. People are afraid to talk. "I'm a lesbian" she shouts proudly to the audience, "and I'm trying to fmd happiness. 1 don't want people to see me in a weird way. 1 can't take it." Tired of crying and exposing herself to others, she takes a deep breath and sits down on the floor, putting her hands up in her face.
Day of Silence

"You others, don't look up," A lady says to us, the outsiders. "Please respect their
feelings ...just listen and keep your heads down," Crossing from the outer circle to the
center, the lady rejoins the group in sorrow. Another speaks. "I married a woman just to
make my family happy" a mature male voice confesses. "I have a kid, whom I adore, but
I feel empty ... I feel trapped in a man's body. I'm gay," His jeans are tight and his purple shirt could not cover the crosses he had tattooed on his anTIS.Another moderator stands
up and hugs him with love. He falls into the moderator's anTIS,and cries with no shame. We, the outsiders, break into tears, and all of a sudden, the crying got unified. It
became one sad sonata.

Wind hitting my face and the speed of the car electrifies my hair in the air as my sister and I cruise the streets of San Francisco. "Look, look! They are kissing each other! Ew! Look over there! Right there in the corner! He has his hands in the other guy's pocket, Dude! His jeans are so tight! What are they laughing about? Get the camera! Is it on? Film it! Oh my God! I've never seen anything like this before." Castro Street: the new world in San Francisco. Flashy lights, tacky cinemas, men kissing each other and always full of love. Huge rainbow flags wave in the air in every store, where diversity is more than welcome to be served. Cars are honking; men are wearing sexy cowboy hats, people without t-shirts and hot tans.

Isolated. Red duck tape covers her mouth. A small petit girl with glasses is taking a vow. Flyers on a hard brown plywood table. No cel phone, no food, just a bottle of water. "What are you doing?" No response. Just silence. "What is this all about?
Why are you here?" More silence. She wiggles a flyer in the air and her eyes motions me to read it. "Oh! Urn ... OK, thanks." Sweat is dripping out of her forehead. I notice her red tape is even starting to fall off her mouth. The wind is hot and there is nobody else around campus.
Bold black letters. "Day of Silence"