It’s when I learn how little you think
—just in general, not necessarily of me,
though I do not forget just how silly
you can be with your attempts
to stifle my research, my scholarship, my intense
understanding of just how failed you as a person,
as a department, as a bureaucracy, as a sensation
that wants to have an impact.
How tragic;
you take away everything from me that you can
and make me feel like I am insignificant. Not a leader, or even a man—
just a small boy, crying and wanting to be special. To be someone who can
put on the big scholar pants, and come dying to you
for a little bit of respect.
I worry about the images that made you think that
you are somehow a reputable academic
institution; a sizeable and interesting
location that will always command
the interest of others. The interests of other nations
the considerations of other invaded
places.
They will go elsewhere
when they realise what has happened here:
when they realise that all you care about
is making your own people suffer
when they do better
than you could ever have hoped to imagine
—again, whether for yourself, or for others, it does not matter.
Like you yourself insinuate all the time:
does it matter if you call me Merlionsman, or Dreamtiger,
or Kristang leader?
Day by day,
the result is the same.
The resolve grows ever a little weaker.