ESL or You Weren't Here. Aldrin Valdez

       Blue Bakla

       isa

      Contrary

      to what I’ve been made to believe most of my life,

      I am notempty.

      The air is full of water and someone’s

      hand pricks at it with a needle.

      The water rushes out.

      I panic.

      Water is sadness

      pulsing

      in thick waves, now unstoppable.

      I’m scrambling and shouting at other people to run.

      All my borders are soaked!

      And worse

      blue is seeping into yellow.

       dalawa

      When yellow meets blue

      it is a floral duster dress

      my grandmother’s body fills in.

      But if you were to burrow

      into the belly of her dress,

      you would find endless layers

      of patterned fabric

      and no body.

       tatlo

      My grandmother is my mother.

      She is Nanay.

      I am a child and I have lost her

      at the gate of St. Mary’s Academy in Manila.

      The security guard

      is a scowl in uniform

      berating me:

      Your lola has to leave.

      Kaylangan niya magtrabaho.

      Get inside!

       apat

      Behind the gate, black & white shapes move swiftly through the halls. The bleached statue of a haughty Virgin Mary in the courtyard punishes a snake under her marble foot. October is Rosary Month. Every morning we kneel on the red tiles, a student leading us in prayer over the loudspeaker.

      I seem to alwaysbe quiet.

      I am dumb.

      The teachers’ befuddled stares confirm it

      but I am fine with that.

      I don’t want to be so visible in school.

      I can’t speak English and reading frustrates me.

      I am learning at a slow pace.

      Like Maria Makiling

      turning

      herself

      into a mountain.

      I am learning to speak

      from, alongside

      silence, writing

      asdrawing :

      a curve

      in the air,

      my head

      & name

      aloud,

      land,

      the trees,

      my feelings.

       lima

      The English

      language

      is Mrs. Modesta’s pockmarked skin and potato nose.

      The English

      language

      is Mrs. Modesta’s electrocuted elocution:

      Pleazzzzesit down.

       Zzzeee

      is for zzzebra.

       Manila iz where?

      It eeezzz on the island of Luzzzon.

      The English

      language

      is the gray foot of an elephant protruding

      from my mouth in the first sentence

      I ever read out loud in Mrs. Modesta’s English class.

       anim

      Christopher & I sit in the front row

      He is my best friend.

      We fondle each other and no one sees.

      Twolittlebaklas

      in white & navy blue.

      The girls on the other side

      are always laughing.

      I tried to speak

      to Jasmine once but her friends taunted me because they thought

      I had a crush on her and because my name resembles the name

      Aladdin.

       pito

      When asked to do the sign of the cross in Bible class

      I let my hand spider from my forehead to my chest

      then to my shoulders.

      I am wrong.

      Out of nervousness

      I have used my left hand.

      I am asked to repeat.

      When we aren’t praying, we are drawing

      images of Jesus Christ.

      Mine is a man in a mandorla

      radiating stars & ribbons of light.

      Or we’re making lists of who has talked in class while the teacher is out of the room.

       Ma’am! Ma’am!

      We would rush to her

      tattling the names of classmates.

       walo

      Christopher and I love to sing

      Mariah Carey’s Without You.

      Christopher says over the phone that he has never sounded so good

      as he does now.

      I agree with him.

      His voice has the motion of a wilting

      gumamela shaking

      under the breath of a kambing.

      I, on the other hand, when I get home from school, am an exceptional singer.

      I singeverywhere.

      Into the electric fan.

      In the bathroom with the tabo in my hand.

      In front of a gathering of neighbors outside during brownouts.

      I sing for attention and the more I get the more