The foreign woman / La extranjera (song/canción)

By: Liliana Felipe[1]
Non-authorized translation by: Camila Esguerra & Daria Ukhova

I talk with an accent of other seas
And I already don’t know which sands keep secretly
the small handful of stories that was me, far away from here.
Today, your body is the one that teaches me to live.
And since the moment you have embraced me
Since the moment you have kissed me
I’m not the one that arrives and thinks about distances.
Your life is also my country.
If one day you see that I’m going to die
Turn your breast to me
It will be a warm night
And I will think that my homeland is the pillow that you gave me
Maybe, I will die then, singing quietly, shrinking
Or hiding in a little corner inside,
Or feeling like a coldness of a couple
Still, I won’t die like a foreigner of your strong lips
I won’t die like a foreigner of your strong lips.

[1] Liliana Felipe is an Argentinian, composer and singer, who lives in exile in México. There, Liliana went to one of Jesusa Rodriguez's performances. Jesusa, catching a glimpse of Felipe in the audience, remembers saying to herself: "I am going to die with that woman." Since then, Liliana and Jesusa have created two performance spaces, El Cuervo and later El Habito, that they still run. They 'married' in February, 2000.

VERSIÓN ORIGINAL EN ESPAÑOL

Hablo con dejo de otros mares.
Y ya no sé qué arenas guardarán secretas
aquel pequeño puñado de historias que fui, tan lejos de aquí
Hoy, tu cuerpo es quien me enseña a vivir
Y desde que me abrazas
Desde que me besas
No soy aquella que llega y que piensa distancias
Tu vida también es mi país
Y si un día ves que voy a morir
Préstame tu pecho
Será noche tibia
Y yo tendré por patria la almohada que me diste
Puede ser que muera así cantando bajito, abajito
O que me meta en un rinconcito
O que sienta como un frío de dos
Pero, no moriré extranjera de tus labios fuertes,
no moriré extranjera de tus labios fuertes

Liliana Felipe, compositora argentina, exiliada en México.