the glow of a good man's chest
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.
is warm.
Radiant.
Every torment and torture
clutched tight and tentative within the breast
defiant.
No abusers here.
No manipulators.
No tyrants.
Just the Kristang strength of every land.
Just the Gaietic song, taking me by shoulder, my hand.
Just the sound of the universe
kissing my forehead.
What Fuad said:
dauntlessly
I am always, ever more so,
becoming a man
who finally is learning that to be a hero
is endless yearning
for any other life than this.
The Philosopher's Bones are made indestructibly brittle
by that singular, quantum thermodynamic kiss
of Death
always knocking at your door.
Every second, every minute, every hour:
you worry that in an instant
once more
you are scattered on the floor
and your flowers, even, are no longer resistant
to anything more
than this
waking up
and crying.
Wake up and see yourself once again
dying.
Asking for a closure that
steadfastly still refuses a proper, and creole
rhyming.
I still
I still see myself
crying
and crying
and crying
for you:
the life that you, too,
are trying to live.
And I'm still holding out for you.
Inviting
you to know
that there is something worth every last drop of irei
that you didn't know you had to give.
That you, too, walking alone, out there in the world:
Kevin Martens Wong is out there too.
Still learning what is and isn't his.
And maybe this is his to say,
and yours to hear:
it's okay to be every kind of not okay,
and it's okay to be absolutely consumed by fear.
The Dragon Reborn most definitely is all the time.
Especially because he is so breathlessly queer.
But breathless all the same:
I still
I still see myself
crying
and crying
and crying
because
I still see you
fighting
and fighting
and fighting.
For me.
For you.
For a world that is finally a little more fucking true.
Thunder and lightning?
No longer really that frightening.
It's all about the view
of the glow of a good man learning to finally be at rest.
Of a little Kristang champion learning that he is not alone on any quest.
Of knowing that you, too—
from yourself
you also always only ever deserved the truth:
the bravest, the boldest, and only the absolutely most beautiful and best.