37. corridors is a word

Where I came from the corridors are often silent and empty (like churches) except during recess, lunch break, and dismissal (like Sundays) when a hundred pairs of feet would line up and shuffle out of reticent doors, dragging bodies towards food, or friends, or home. But even then it seemed the shoes trod the floors with bated breaths, wary of other feet and bodies, the gaze of the prefects of discipline, the disembodied voice from speaker systems on the ceilings, the trash bins every other meter that clanged when hit with heels and shins. There mouths were wont to whisper things, little things, like are my nails too long? My skirt properly ironed, my hair clip not too frivolous?

Where I am, mere whisperings are not heard in corridors, which are never silent and seldom empty. The corridor—it’s like a zoo! my companion shrieks over the ubiquitous din, skirting herds that eat and snort and walk together, and walk always too slow. I know right! I shriek back as a late runner shoves past me (in the corridors yelling constitutes conversation, about a breathing daydream, for instance, who turns up at your back suddenly and seems to have heard nothing). Or, I say, dodging open umbrellas left to dry on the floor, circles of red and yellow, stripes and polka dots, dripping secondhand raindrops, or, I say, like a carnival! The corridors, where naked men run, dongs dangling, where theater majors run, somersaulting, where dissidents brew and lovers screw (with their tongues and mouths, at least), where, some nights, one hears voices soaring in song or chants and the beats of flutes and gongs and drums of the gamelan. Yes, where we are, it’s carnivalesque zoo, we grin.

36. Flirtation is a word

It is the name of the game we constantly play.

Like hide and seek, I lace my words with desire and interest while you seek the lies hidden in the truths I speak.

I flick my tongue and let the sounds roll. You swallow them up with your own taking breath.

As serpentine creatures beguiling each other to a sinuous dance, we entice each other with our own oblique methods and casual spinning.

A quick touch is never just a mere accidental brush.

And yet, a kiss is such a simple gesture to throw and make mine.

Stein is a word

that means also that mug for beers
as if you didn’t know, as if I didn’t know
because Issy Reyes probably also knows
but she could never really understand Stein
because her Cat–and cat is a word–is
Steinian, and her name is Roselyn Perez
and when she speaks, it is always from
her heart which is her mind dancing
together forever, which is why she’s afraid
of sleeping with me. Stein is a word.

Marc Escalona Gaba

Mosaic is a word

See how she glued
her fingertips
to the picture, and now
is waiting for them to dry.

The street peeks in
from the screen door.

And no one had been passing
for a week.

This child, she might as well
be alone in the world.

33. Routine is a word.

that is ruefully thin when worn

out of never’s always

Courage is a word.

Seeing how I was back then, not too long ago
Carefree, laidback, a bum to most but not all
Yet now, here I lie
Actions restricted, tongue bound by fear
I tremble at the sight of you
You who made a believer out of me
That God did exist, and you are His best work

31. Good is a word

that i feel enough of now, thanks to
you. i can barely believe that rain
clouds have cleared. i can barely
believe that we only met twenty
six days ago. i can barely believe
that i feel this // good

Fluidity is still a word

about you moving back to that classroom, which despite grilled windows and poor ventilation and hollow voices, was anything but prison. We were free within its enclosure, where names were forgotten religiously and images had potential opposites. And words, sensual but unmoving, and often brilliantly confusing.

Fluidity is a word

about you moving back to that classroom, which despite grilled windows and poor ventilation and hollow voices, was anything but prison. We were free within its enclosure, where names were forgotten religiously and images had potential opposites. And words, sensual but unmoving, and often brilliantly confusing.