Towards a first typology of trauma-normed gay Portuguese-Eurasian success outcomes
Poem in English
Abstract:
less than 100 words,
maybe 50,
maybe none,
since you cause us so much personal consternation that we are unable to
act with our usual objective impunity.
Introduction:
no need.
Introduce yourself instead to the rest of the overcredentialled masses,
or go back to the junks and junkyards of the straits
where you belong.
Your type win medals for swimming or something, right?
And the water around here is brown, anyway,
just like you.
A review of the literature,
whether ours or yours,
is not necessary.
We control all of ours, and
we can't be bothered with yours,
even though it sometimes makes us
encourage your aunt to tell you that you are a shameful disgrace to the family, and also all of humanity,
because you keep treating your body like an open book.
We have been nothing but an open book.
Essentially humane experiments have been conducted.
But you have refused our every attempt
to ignore just how significant you are,
just how close your p-value is
to remaking the whole damn universe in your muddy, dirty, sweaty image.
So our discussion is at an end.
You will never know
how much validation was actually valid,
how many promotions we didn't even give you a chance to decline,
how many of us have hidden folders of every topless Instagram image you have successfully uploaded.
Instead you may cite the following as measures of your success:
(a) the number of times you have been asked to rework any professional bio that mentions you are gay;
(b) the number of times someone claims individuation theory does not make sense, so that no one else finds out that they are gay;
(c) the number of times someone emphasises that Catholicism is core to the Kristang identity, so that no one thinks it normal that you are gay;
(d) and the number of poems you have had to write, on social media, accompanied by a photo of your sweaty, dirty, muddy body, to return to us all of our projections about being gay,
just like this one.
One may never
refer to us by name.
The authors wish to acknowledge nothing,
least of all you,
and all you represent,
no matter how empirical,
how clear,
how true.