It’s not a real word.
Actually, to some people,
both are not real;
both are a means to an end,
an idea that lesser women and men
need an identity that allows them to pretend
that they matter.
That the stories and experiential learning classes they dangle as bait
are something that other people
will never treasure.
That calling yourself a leader
is nothing, if you don’t have
money
power
prestige
and an aura of truthiness, tasteful and speckled
with things that, in themselves, also try very hard to pretend to be
pure, natural flowers.
Let me tell you something, sonny boy,
my gay Kristang whiz-kid, my one and only community leader
who has jumped straight off the sinking Singapore ship—
how’s the water?
Is it calm, torpid, decadent—
is it getting hotter?
How’s the tour, the tower,
the keynote from Doing Being Other?
175 asynchronous registrations?
My, oh my.
Doubtless you couldn’t be more popular
if we tried, actually,
to respect you;
luckily, you and I,
and your great-grandmother
and your great-great-great-grandfather
know that this is something we will never do.