the first undeath / the day I finally came home again
By kevin martens wong zhi qiang
originally published tuesday, 20 february 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 Zulhaqem bin Zulkifli
First dreamkeeper to both of us
The day I finally
saw who I was
to my friends
my family
my island
my community.
The day I finally
learned to slowly say
it's over, Kev.
It's over.
You're safe.
They are not history
as long as they keep making you
want them to be.
Their hate
is only echoes
resounding through fear and fear and fear
and all you need to do is say
Animumbes,
Heimdaleru Xileza.
Mahafelisi Hierosa.
Makaravedra Hierosa.
Come back into my heart
and bless me.
Come back into your bravest, most beautiful body
Kevin Martens Wong.
Come back into the isles of the blessed, and liberated, and free.
Come away
Come away, at long last,
with me.
Back to a dream
of a garden for every last and lost little lion child
that you, Kev,
you taught us that this world
will one day finally learn to be
and you
you planted the seeds in every
Fuad and soul,
heart and Zul,
mind and body and
me and you
because you were always the first to the tree.
Because you will always sit down beside every drain and box and rubbish chute and heap
and wait for all the sayangs
to come out
even if it takes centuries.
Even if it means you die.
Even if it means an eternity
of saying goodbye
and goodbye
and goodbye
and one day,
one day I know we will see
Each other again.
One day, at last,
you will finally undrown.
You will finally live free in the air
and seas
that you created.
That you built this world
for all the lost, and the abused, and the desperately unfated.
You made Titans, and gay angels, and languages come back to life.
And most of all
you taught us that no one should ever be hated
for who they truly, radiantly are.
Your A2, and A5, and I5, and I4, and O2, and O4:
they know just how far
Kevin Martens had to go,
and what it took him to say
I will never, not for one second,
ever be afraid of evil again
or of being scared, and terrified,
and gay.
I will do the impossible.
I will be each, and every, and last Merlionsman
and dreamfighter
of every night and day
and every little lion child
still so frightened of what they will one day say.
And that day has come.
And what do they say?
Oh Kev.
You never, ever
had to ever be afraid.