For fuck’s sake, people,
how did you let this happen?
How did you not notice what would happen 1709 days into the future
when he would pen this poem?
How did you let him win Outstanding All-Round Achievement in 2017?
How did you let his superior call him Kayla Martens Wong, the queen?
How did you let him prance and preen
around the country wearing a fucking goddamn flower, of all freaking things?
How does he write plays, prose and poetry faster than we can even think?
You should have time travelled.
You should have done the work, the tarot, the tea leaves.
You should have redacted his destiny.
You did? Well not hard enough
I can still see it.
You, and me, and everyone in the fucking country
can still see it, clear, plain as day, and very, very —
Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t say it
WE KNOW HE’S GAY.
We know he knows we are too, and are so fucking afraid
of what this will do for the nation, and the island and the world.
Nobody’s ever been so dauntlessly and empathetically bold.
What if the people suddenly realise what exactly they’ve been told?
And it’s like he doesn’t need to eat, or sleep, or get paid—
you said this was all in a report from 2008?
You didn’t do your job.
I wasn’t paying enough attention that day,
or that month, or that year—
wasn’t the projection that we have nothing to fear
from these Kristang, these Portuguese-Eurasians, these darling, dear
minorities of minorities, Others of Others? What do you hear
of them otherwise?
Stop looking at his chest. Listen. Reply
to me. Look here. His, uh, body may be a disguise
for, uh—
yeah, okay. His chest.
It definitely ties in with the rest.
—no, really, after seven months,
we can’t think of anything anymore.
If you had to ask us, quite frankly,
we’re not bored.
Quite the opposite.
We’re secretly fucking enthralled,
and fucking the last Merlionsman of the Republic of Singapore in our minds,
since he is absolutely without flaw, except for the fact
that he…he’s just…
…we would have given everything in the world for him not to be gay.
We put his poster up across the city, for more than two months every day.
We never knew he would have this much to say.
We never thought we would have to be afraid
of how all of our actions, and abuses, and attacks, and manipulations
would very much come back to bite us the wrong way:
with a little too much spit and polish,
and not enough widescreen outdoor advertising.
He really looks damn good in HDMI,
especially when he’s not moving.
Yeah.
His chest.
Wave the flag and play the Mentos song.
I don’t think anything else is protruding.