I Am Not the Cause of Your Hurt
But you sure are mine.
You sure thought I was fine.
And I thought—
I thought this friendship was divine.
I thought I had found a friend—
I thought this time
it would not be a lie.
I would finally not have to unconsciously play pretend.
I never imagined
how close you would bring me
to almost actually
taking my own life.
Was it worth it?
Am I a real poet yet,
SingLit?
Have I died enough in my own fucking mind
for you assholes to realise
I literally ate my own shit
at the psychoemotional command
of people like you?
Trauma is trendy?
Do you think I fucking played pretend
when I was on the other end
of this kind of news,
when students told me about abuse
and the school admin
fucking refused to do jack shit
twice?
"I do the same thing to my daughter, even,
Kevin."
Do me fucking dead then.
Do me until I am in seventh fucking abused heaven
and all your next generation of very ForwardedSG Singaporeans
are either floundering through IMH,
or in prison
because they ended up like my friend here.
Made entirely of fear,
and just disgusting,
hyperlicentious, traitorous —
you know.
All the things
he made me feel belonged here, instead
in this heart.
This body.
This mind.
This soul.
This life.
You take it all fucking away.
You have killed all thirty years of my life, over and over again. I never came to slay
and you fucking murdered me, over and over again. Gay
and evil. Promiscuous and still worthy enough to be CJC Student Council Catholic Activities Vice-President. What a day,
huh, Sisyphus?
Rolling in the mud
and blood
and decapitated families and body parts
of the people you betrayed
over and over and over again.
I am not Paul Atreides.
I am Kevin Martens.
My holy war needs no Hades. No violence.
Just devastating beauty.
Compassion.
Empathy for the ferociously self-damned.
And a howling, neverending kindness.
Like what you never showed me.
Remember this,
when I never make you beg for mercy.
When I let you keep your fucking name and image intact
in feature articles and on TV.
You change.
I will not ever lift one finger to hurt you.
It's not about proving anything, after all;
it was what was always truth.