How can you be proud
for shame
FOR SHAME, KEVIN MARTENS WONG ZHI QIANG —
how can you proud of a body that has let you down,
that has taken you away from yourself,
that has made you gay?
Rationally —
let's talk rationally, Kevin,
scholar to scholar,
thinker to thinker,
good person to good person,
man to man.
Men know what they want,
and surely they don't want this.
What do you want, Kevin?
You're still a good person.
You could have done so much for this community,
for this college,
for this country,
for this collapsing, crumbling world.
All you had to do was set an example.
And so I have.
I have set an example
of klai mistih andah.
Of walking away
of saying no,
ngka,
yo NGGEH.
Nadi.
Nenang kung nadi.
Nanggora —
nanggora yo ja ubih yo sa korpu.
My body has heard the stories you tell yourself at night
to make yourself feel better
about this collapsing, crying world,
this country,
that college.
This is community.
This body is peer-reviewed
endlessly, by every intelligence agency in the closet:
scholar to scholar
thinker to thinker
and every agentic heart, held closest to itself, that longs to say
Mr Wong taught me what it means to be me.
So be you.
You don't need Mr Wong.
Do you know what Mr Wong did?
Do you know what he did, for shame —
Yes.
Yes, he did it for shame.
He did it so we all can take ourselves away from ourselves.
He did it for rationality.
He did it for the people who know what they want,
for the people who know
how we can all be proud.