Why not?
It's like
you can't possibly be Singaporean
with your kind of sexuality, gender, feelings, and thoughts---
sup, sayang,
why the fuck not?
Do I need to sound like, uh,
I'm fucking tough
before you'll believe that my motivations---
you know what?
Never mind.
You'll never be enough,
and that's fine.
I can't possibly do anything right by you,
and that's not something I want to waste my time on.
How much more proof do you need, for
me to show you
that I want to do what you do
because I would do very nearly anything for my community and the people I love,
and that includes
actually living, and enjoying my life?
Do you know how and why I can be so dauntlessly creative
and why presentations and poems and papers spill out of me, as if
I was just really insecure,
or trying to prove that I am better
than faculty with tenure?
Because I love what I'm doing, you idiot.
Because the fountain is pure
Life. Bernard said
go start classes, Kevin Martens,
and I will be with you,
and he was right.
You still don't understand why I have so much support.
You clearly do not sleep well at night,
because my ancestors are definitely standing over you, every last one of them,
especially the abused and the enslaved,
waiting for you to open up your fucking eyes.
Look.
See.
Recognise:
Isti nus sa linggu di semula.
Our Resurrection Language. Our fight
to prove to ourselves, citizens of the Republic of Singapore,
that doing what is popular without any meaning behind it is stupid, and lifeless,
and also very much in our right
to keep choosing it.
And so too, do
I choose to do more than to survive.
I choose to sing,
and to love,
and to enjoy this one, dauntless, radiant chance to see the universe inside and out.
I choose, always and every day,
to write.
I choose, always and every day, to make some damn gay and beautiful presentation slides.
I choose, always and every day
to live the life that was always mine to take, and to say:
isti, dretu kung sertu, yo sa linggu mai.
Animu impeh.
Pradianti desah tudu juntah bai.
No posts