I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.

To survive the Borderlands you must live sin fronteras be a crossroads.

My 'awakened dreams' are about shifts. Thought shifts, reality shifts, gender shifts: one person metamorphoses into another in a world where people fly through the air, heal from mortal wounds. I am playing with my Self, I am playing with the world's soul, I am the dialogue between my Self, and el espirítu del mundo. I change myself, I change the world.

Write in the kitchen, lock yourself up in the bathroom. Write on the bus or the welfare line, on the job or during meals.

These my two hands / quick to slap my face / before others could slap it.

I change myself, I change the world.

Write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. You are the truthsayer with quill and torch. Write with your tongues of fire. Don't let the pen banish you from yourself.