Well, you live with the fact that with minimal effort, I can produce 18 high-quality poems in one day (including this one),
and I live with the fact that you generally end up with none.
I hope you’re not stunned.
I hope you’re at least having fun.
Because I can’t understand why of all the roads less taken,
this happened to be the best possible outcome.
Wouldn’t it be far easier to work collaboratively,
act graciously,
compete without shedding
one’s psychoemotional dignity?
(And stop with the conditioning and the modelling.
It’s so ridiculously and clearly
something you only wish you could be.
How’s that support from the community?
It shows you just how much you understand the Kristang,
and Gen Z,
and the general Singaporean psyche.)
You worry I will outcompete you,
outwrite you,
outlight you in the dawning age
of post-Spectrumity.
But I can make up words too,
just to make you feel better.
Just to help you to see:
that I don’t need to worry about the respect
of someone who hasn’t even started on the journey
of fully respecting themselves, whomsoever that might be.
Here’s space, and here’s time,
for you to live without me:
and there’s regret, and guilt, and self-loathing
taking over your psyche for free.
No.
I do not approve.
I am the last Merlionsman of the Republic of Singapore,
and I will not let you reduce
who you are, for the sake of ignoring what needs to ultimately be achieved:
a better living with yourself,
so that respect becomes genuine, and true, and
oh so easy.