blue team
By kevin martens wong zhi qiang
originally published monday, 4 march 2024
on tigri sa chang
Koitadu | Content warning
Please first read about my writing in the Skribadorang or Writing section on the Igleza page here before reading the piece below so you have advance warning about the rather spicy things that I often like to write about, and why I choose to write about them, especially in terms of subverting unhealthy stereotypes about gay people, Kristang people, Creole people, Indigenous people, masculinity, neurodivergence, the body, healthy forms of attraction and sexuality, and using my writing to process the severe individual, collective and inter-generational trauma and abuse I have faced across my life.
For Benji, Naz and Syafiq,
for Mom, Jared and Dad,
for Por Por, Kong Kong and Gran,
and for Pat, Pat, Agnes and Deb:
no greater Greatest Journey without you.
Thank you for making sure that that was not the way the world would end,
and for helping me finish this fight.
Oly oly oxen free—
I have seen it all,
and come home
always
through every hell
and heaven
and eternity.
From every Halo,
and Shield World,
and terrifying, hyperapocalyptic destiny—
I have never needed to stay my hand.
For all that has always lain within
is courage enough to slay
every indignity
that once tore me apart.
Seeded me into the land,
my augmentations utterly useless.
My Spartan heart always less than
a beautiful gay Kristang expanse.
A clockwork creole supercharisma of a nonbinary
man
who was always
the farthest away from violence.
Who could never even hope to pretend
that I understood anyone,
let alone anyone
who always
should have been
my closest friend.
I've
got your back,
Chief?
No need.
Just call me
Kev
and just do what I always dreamed
you would do, with every bravest breath:
be free.
Out toward the farthest reaches of the stars
I always only ever wanted you
to be seen.
To laugh
and be loved
because you were nothing but
living authenticity.
The sound of hope, so honoured
in dauntless, fearlessly won honest victory
that meant you—
you were always destined
to be your own supersoldier virtue.
Your own unwavering strength and relief
and the first and greatest person you could turn to.
For they never stopped coming for me
and all those I loved—
and for the longest time,
as it always is with every kind of
Flood
they tried to become you.
They would take it all from me
by devouring my heart
from where I had always, unshakeably,
stayed true
and so I became my own shield and sword.
I,
useless.
Broken.
Irrational.
Overcome and lifeless
became my own supersoldier virtue.
And the kindness
has since never stopped
blooming,
in the flowers of a time gone by.
In the songs of a hundred thousand Kevins reborn.
In the days of futures past, brought back
to roaring life
by the tiniest, most timid signs and sighs.
One whisper.
I can hear you,
in every portal and picture:
Oly oly oxen free.
A pillar of endless autumn.
A way home, out of every tomb of onyx and obsidian.
A dragon's eyes.
A merlion's prize.
Only in the sun,
waiting;
the flowers float across the lagoon,
once more
quietly and gently
reclaiming.
SPARTAN-II Blue Team logo image from Halopedia (link) and header image by alexanderd38 on WallpaperSafari (link). And for a better vibe of what Blue Team is like in the Halo universe, the opening cinematic of Halo 5: Guardians is generally an accurate sense of them (link). More information about why SPARTAN-IIs in general come off as kalkali (it seems possible that in the world of Halo, which was developed before discourse about neurodivergence and autism became mainstream and which seems to therefore accidentally treat high-functioning autism as a superpower in the exact same way Singapore unconsciously treats high-functioning autism as a superpower and the pinnacle of human existence, Dr Halsey literally accidentally recruited 150 autistic children to be SPARTAN-IIs) can be found here (link).