Body Language: Between the Words

Body Language: Between the Words by Gabriela Condrea
Dialogues of Healing and Resistance
Union Cultural Center, Seattle
Photography by Eduardo Inclouds

Sometimes we get stuck in the verbiage,
as if in our you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it culture,
if we can’t put it into words, it doesn't count; it isn't valid. 

But communication is 70% body language, they say,
and interpretation is always at play…
Nothing is crystal clear,
nothing is black and white.

And some things can’t be contained in boxes
or tied up in neat little bows;
Some things go beyond our capacity to formulate
strings of pearls and paragraphs.
Between the commas and the periods,
all caps and hash-tags,
there’s more.

There’s more and sometimes we’re afraid to express it
because without neatly arranging it into spoken words,
we think it won’t make sense,
that people won’t hear us.

But they do.

They hear your smile loud and clear,
your slumped shoulders too,
the downward gaze,
the batting of an eyelash,
the raise of an eyebrow –
they hear you. We hear you.

Don’t be afraid to speak – with your words, with your soul –
embody your space and say what you have to say,

because whether you intend to or not, you do: speak.