Where we all were led to drown,
once upon a time,
in the seas that Albuquerque invited us all
to climb, and ascend, and struggle against
until it all recessed into
men and women, and non-binary devils who could not be found
except in the summer, underneath a tree, a grove, or a cloud.
Where is my culture? Yo pun ngka sabeh.
It’s as if a dark, aimless shroud
has covered yo sa babi pongteh,
has covered my smoh, my means of getting around
and getting by, my ways of trying
to remember how to fly,
to make music with everything traumatising
and denied so many times.
I forget, by and by,
that I used to wear it all with pride.
Ki bos ja bistih?
Nothing.
Nteh.
Yo ja fikah dispidu, pra machu, pra muleh.
I came and I saw A Famosa burning;
I came again and I saw my great-great-great-grandfather returning.
I came a third time, and the land, it was burning.
Everything they took from us,
I understand.
It’s what was left over
that still demands
a reckoning, a retelling:
a real, gay, non-binary Kristang man.