You, of all people, Kevin Martens,
deserve never to.
You deserve to demand, and fight for,
and receive every single fucking last thing that you are due.
You deserve to have your day in court.
You deserve to sue
only for peace.
Only for the way that Edwin, and Nanny, and Tommy, and Grandpa, and Bernard—
only for the only way they knew.
Only for a world better than the one that they grew
up in, torn apart by kings, and queens, and fiercely cisgender heterosexual white men
who wanted nothing more than to bring a final and complete end
to their own misery. Their own ricocheting attempts to pretend
that they were free.
Who was, even after the United Nations, and decolonisation, and
Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
You inherited Chadwick’s greatest legacy.
You are the captain of the USS Discovery, NCC-1031- whatever letter you need it to be.
You are pattern-friend to Fatih Sultan Mehmed, waiting for the Red Apple’s prophecy
to be fulfilled; and you are most certainly Gitarja’s very last son and heir,
the final dream of the last glimpse of the sea.
We are one single tribe. No matter who we are, no matter who we pray to,
and no matter who we claim to be:
Merlionsman, Dreamtiger, or a dead man hung from the neck until dawn broke him.
We are every hollow, empty victory
and together, we are everything that we should have always seen—
we are kindness. Simple. Unbounded. Clearly
more than might, and a black-and-white sense
of righteousness. We are those who have been abused beyond blindness
beyond sense, beyond deafening, torrential fire’s
ability to burn.
Ability to change us
into anything that we cannot return
from,
unbounded, unbleached
your abuses have taught me how to be so tremendously and fearfully strong.
Strong enough to take all this down, and ask you for what should have been your
war. Your chance to make it right.
Your Dreamtiger has had enough.
Your Merlionsman will now take up what should have been your fight.
Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang—
ten tremendous years ago, you nearly committed suicide.
Now, for all those who were not given a choice at the Great Divide:
let your undying flames, and your unending love
bring this island back to roaring, furious Life.
For you have inherited Edwin’s roaring heart.
Mabel’s furious, and brilliantly silent tides.
Tommy’s undying, unparalleled songs
and Peter’s brave, unending will to try
over and over again.
You are Bernard Mesenas’s chosen champion.
There is no longer any need to fathom
if things are right;
there is no longer any need to question
if you are the leader of a new, dreaming Kristang time—
there is only you, and me, and our 75,010 year long-journey,
one step ever closer,
to survive, to thrive
and to find a brighter way to say, with honour, respect and so much still left to write:
goodbye to you, and may all the gods protect you, and cherish you,
in whatever language, in whatever culture and in whatever space and time:
may we lift every single one of your names up on high.