Troy Cabida (he/him) is a Filipino poet from Las Piñas City, Metro Manila, currently based in Earls Court, London. An alumnus of the Barbican Young Poets, Troy’s recent poems appear in bath magg, fourteen poems, and 100 Queer Poems (Vintage, 2022). His poem “How to wear a Love Bracelet” was shortlisted for The Bridport Prize for Poetry 2022. His debut pamphlet, War Dove was published by Bad Betty Press. Troy has also served as a producer for Poetry and Shaah, an open mic night based in Brixton, London. Troy is currently undertaking a BA in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London and works for the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre. (Author photo by July Sumalde)
Grade 1
One day, the girl who had hair pointing outwards like horns growing out from behind her neck looked at me with eyes blank with youth and said she was proud of me. Sip orange juice. It was during break time when she tells the class, huddling around us, that I was no longer a gay boy. That sure, I was one yesterday, but today she sees none of that softness weighing down my shoulders, tingling her curiosity. Nothing bent or fragrant standing out. Today, she declared me void and for that, I’m worth a round of applause. Crumple juice box. Later in class, we stand to recite to the letter P. I stand, get nipped at the ankle by classmates not to say P as in Pamaypay, as in Pink, as in Prim, but to say P as in Pako, as in Pain, as in Power.
Replica
The attention those gauntlets would catch out in the streets. Shine full silver, their outlines solar, framing power muscular yet refined. Imagine unboxing the delivery through a flurry of excitement, donning the headband – sorry, tiara, and seeing it as reconciliation between the young man who wants to grow into full man by looking past tremors of his own hate, studying the dullness in violence, understanding that mercy is a constant task and that the truth isn’t always as golden as a one-word definition, mixed with the plucky eight-year-old boy wearing a mask from Toy Kingdom, a makeshift lasso made out of shoestrings, ribbons and shorts strings latched at the garters of his basketball shorts, who will only spin to transform to fetch a remote or pour water into pitchers at the right call for help: Wonder Woman!
Lemon juice
and here we might be having a love that knows about time that doesn’t burrow in the chest coming through smooth like the first inhale of a cool breeze upon opening a door the kind of love that knows its place and circumstance within the choice you must make between the bad event and the typical happy ending because sticky situations do not transmute into good by themselves you have to choose to wake up and contribute to the healing until you bear a gift to reap which right now is the rest of central London all to ourselves the city not noticing the swift landing of an arm around a shoulder the back and forth of flirtation nimble on its feet