After having explored various professions and traveled to seven countries outside the U.S., Sione Aeschliman has returned to Portland, Oregon to work on her writing and make a positive difference in her small corner of the world.

My tongue, which had been asleep all my life, suddenly woke up three days ago after tasting a Thai curry. Since then it’s been alive and pulsating, aching to experience new textures and tastes. It longs to run itself up the smooth, salty neck of the footballer or to follow the sharp, perfumed jawline of the woman on the metro. It would like to creep into the shriveled mouth of the toothless old crone, to caress the withered gums and poke into the crevices left by the teeth that long ago abandoned their posts. It would feel the prick of bristly hairs of a man’s large nostril on its tip. It wants to know everything, all of life’s most intimate secrets.