PROJECT GRACE-UP
NATIONAL LGBTQ+
WRITERS WORKSHOP
Daragang Magayon, Transgender
Paolo Sumayao
Stripped off of the Panganoron-
Pagtuga amorous triangulation,
she wanted the tits of her time
but unlike the Bangkok girls,
hers was pure royalty magic--
34B, presumably—to be quaint.
and coquettish, and Maria Clara-esque
until the women see her as one with them.
So one night, amid macho thunderclaps
and cerulean lightning bolts, by the shore
facing the Pacific, naked yet wrapped
in grey, billowy silk, she knelt down on both knees,
with tears in her eyes and ashen hair wet from the mist,
she prayed.
Perhaps this isn’t me.
Perhaps this isn’t mine.
The wind calls my name,
But it’s not the same, all the time.
Let the truth from the skies above
Fall freely so I could catch a piece
So when I rise one day to thank you
I’d have a majestic peak and within,
a divine peace.
And then a roar, a clap, a lightning streak
Was seen from oceans and mountains away
Tropical winds wafted the coconut trees
stripping her of her silken wrap until she lost breath
and collapsed, facing the skies, with her long legs
sideways falling from kneeling, her arms high above her head.
The next morning, her chest—a chest that has kept secrets
for so long—grew a cone-shaped peak, a tit facing the skies.