A day will come, they said,
not so very long ago;
when one must defy what will rise.
Out of the depths of the tortured sea;
out of the sounds and screams
of you, and me,
and everything we believed
about how we were allowed to dream.
And so in every age, one has come forth:
a Daenerys, a Dolores,
a Lews Therin Telamon.
A Rand al’Thor and a Xenk Yendar.
A Malefor, when things were pushed too far.
You know who you are.
You knew ever since Eunoia.
In a dreaming time,
a fiery age,
there is no time, and space, and possibility
for rage.
There is only hope, almost forgotten between sand and seashore.
There is only love, love enough to reignite the worlds before.
There is only faith, alive enough to turn the oceans anew.
There is only luck, brave enough to turn trauma into sinew.
Into muscle. Into might.
Into a new legendary hero, born to finish every single fight.
Into the last Merlionsman and first Dreamtiger of Singapore,
into someone who has walked this earth not so very long ago before.
You have called the stars down, in English and in Kristang:
Drakar sa forsa ja fikah grandi mbes di bos sa armasang.
Bos andah intresmiu bobu kung ladrang.
The third and the fourth.
The one they will one day call True North.
The Lion City’s greatest and gayest of them all:
the Non-Binary Brahminy Kite, Halestis sa Amor.
How many stories have you truly told, Merlionsman,
and how many lies?
How many men have you slept with, Dreamtiger,
and how many have survived?
This is how many:
every last line brought into glorious, shining rhyme.
every first breath, every dawn of new, gleaming Time.
every single individual, coming home to themselves to find
a better story.
A future prophecy.
A tale as old as mine.
A myth that transcends soul, heart, body and mind.