corpo(un)real

carmen dolina

corpo(un)real

You’re years late to the chiro, my spine reminds. Behind the screen, I dream of my back cracking under a cog. Vertebrae in perfect tessellation with its teeth. It’s not supposed to hurt, it’s supposed to sound. Little alarms to alert: in line. Instead, I get an office chair. Look up ergonomics. Stretch. Crack. Pass the belt through the loops like a child again. Iron down the sleeves. Buy some time. Look in the mirror. Nothing

useful. Baby’s first microaggression happens at the back of a coworker’s car. Something about driving. About the grip of a girl’s hands. Who’s to say it wasn’t made up in a dream? Stretch. Crack. Like glass. Like the bones of a dead bird bent against the windshield. Too unbecoming. Too crude. Instead, zip up the skirt tooth by tooth. Laugh about lunch. Curse the rain. Head out, say thanks, give nothing

away. Throw out the files. Burn them in my sleep. Stretch. Crack. Alert: . Dream of lying face down on the asphalt. Forty-degree heat, side of the road, cities away from home, back slowly snapped

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into the shape of skid marks. Babae ‘yan. Dream someone offers a drink. A hand. The bill. Drugs. Laugh when they don’t. Dream it anyway. Get lunch, sit down, and lick the bowl clean.

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richell isaiah flores

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truth or dare pera o bayong laban o bawi deal or no deal pass or play

mahal ko o mahal ako

tama o mali right or wrong true or false

in sickness or in health

bayan o sarili laban o bawi pera o bayong mahal ko o mahal ako

silent or silenced deal or no deal pass or play true or false

in sickness or in health bayan o sarili truth or dare "One of the two terms govern the other..." –Jacques Derrida

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