I mean it. I’m serious.
I will not become a second Jesus.
I will be lowered into the grave, or the furnace,
and I will be ignited,
and survive.
What, you thought I was going to die?
Only a fool thinks that a jenti Kristang has only one way
to live life,
to fly high,
to give it a second try.
I will not be made into a second, treasonous
attempt at erasure:
you will not say that I said I am whereever my words want to shine.
I am only Kevin Martens, a very small brown boy defined
by his knowledge that one day, this world, and this land, will end.
One day, eyes will close, and all will pretend
that they somehow always wanted the best for me, truly, notwithstanding
the lies, and betrayals, and villainy;
be wary of those who comment
that I was a god,
a deity,
an Olympian,
just shy of being the most worthy laity
there ever was, throughout all of eternity:
in the Elysian fields of your mind,
I will not get up,
and I will not return to deal with such insanity,
because I will be dead.
Gone.
Completely, and with that finality
that you cannot redefine.
And no body part, clothing, or beautiful gay wristband
will ever allow you to mastermind
another takeover.
Another makeover of all of my
people, my island, my country, my world,
my spacetime.
What you know you have to find,
inside, and whose further entombing —
—well, again, I can technically do nothing to override.
What, you thought this poem was a threat?
It is merely an acknowledgement, all that I can provide
to say, by way of meaning,
that nothing can stop you from ignoring what all this has written out in plain sight.
Nothing,
except guilt, and a desire to survive
your own death:
what you, and I, and all of us have got coming,
one sterling, seashore day at a time.