By Cynthia Shank
Ako’y usa ka anak nga dili kaayo makita.
Not on maps. Not in history books.
Not in the shade chart of a BB cream aisle.
I am the blurred edge of a barcode,
scanned by eyes that ask,
“Asa ka gikan?” / “Filipino ba jud ka?” / “Are you even from here?”
Gapuyo ko sa tunga-tunga.
Between island and continent,
Between “Uy, chika ta,” and ”Sorry, I don’t understand,”
Between “Maayong buntag” and “Good morning, Ma’am.”
Between black and brown.
Between too much and never enough.
They look at me and see a puzzle piece they can’t place,
a dialect they can’t pronounce,
a face that doesn’t sit right with their geography.
But I am not lost.
I am not a halfway story.
I am the whole novel;
in serif and sans,
in Visaya, in English, in silence.
I carry my father’s skin,
burnished like the stories he was never allowed to tell.
I carry my mother’s islands,
where halos are handwoven and saints wear slippers.
And in me;
They coexist. They clash. They dance. They love.
I am the intersection.
Where coconut trees sway to old-school R&B.
Where halo-halo meets sweet tea.
Where I learned to say “I’m sorry”
even before they tell me I’m too loud, too soft,
too dark, too American, too foreign,
too much tunga.
But let me say this louder for the people in the back:
Tunga does not mean broken.
Tunga does not mean unsure.
Tunga means space.
Room. Breath. Becoming.
Ako ang pagkatawo nga gihimo sa pagsabot.
Ako ang anak nga gimugos sa duha ka kalibutan,
pero wala gipasagdan.
Ako ang sinugdanan, dili ang sayop.
Ako ang tinunga nga tibuok.
So don’t ask me where I belong;
Watch me make where I stand belong to me.
Because in-between is not a curse.
It’s a kingdom.
And I wear my crown in brown and black and bilingual blood.
I speak it. I live it.
Ako. Tunga. Tibuok.
