I am the Dragon Reborn
on a lonely, missing Singapore;
on an island so ashamed of itself
it would rather join the ranks of the rich, than admit the horrors of Spectrum and Coldstore. Than resist the devastating temptation
that after the Maliduensa's assumed destruction, we can all be something more
without any moral or ethical restriction.
And I am not my island.
I am not Rand al'Thor.
Not Lews Therin Telamon.
Not Dolores-Daenerys.
Not Malefor. I am not the fifth one
invented so that you might keep living the bitter, decaying dream.
I am something so much less
and something so much more.
I will die, childless.
I will die while parts of this world still abhor
their openly gay brethren, and continue to pretend that they are not
exactly the same.
I should have died many, many times.
And yet I still remain
because I have died many, many times
in life, and in love, and in everything and also in name.
I am not a magnaarchetype.
I am merely the one who holds it.
I am not disgusting, or broken, or profane,
or about to lose my mind with worry, or go insane.
I am not going to let anybody reset this planet's history just because their plans have once again gone astray
and I am queer. And strange
and as human as they come. As filled with sorrow, and trauma, and pain
and the courage to step forward, and simply say
this ends here.
And this begins again, in the rain
and the heat, and the winds, and the stars.
I am Singaporean and I am Kristang
and I was made in the ocean, and the lake
of scars. Of Rage. Of tiger-stripes, and a gay brown lion's huge, luminous mane.
I am the maimed. The colonised, the abused, the subalterned, the victimised.
And this Wong does have a wrong song to sing.
So many quadrillions of verses, and a simple, Life-giving refrain:
we are all Dragons, every single last one of us.
We are all risen out of the sea, into the burning, beautiful, billowing day.
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