Obsidian
By kevin martens wong zhi qiang
originally published on saturday, 26 april 2025
on tigri sa chang
Koitadu | Content warning
Please first read about my writing in the Skribadorang or Writing section on the Igleza page here before reading the piece below so you have advance warning about the rather spicy things that I often like to write about, and why I choose to write about them, especially in terms of subverting unhealthy stereotypes about gay people, Kristang people, Creole people, Indigenous people, masculinity, neurodivergence, the body, healthy forms of attraction and sexuality, and using my writing to process the severe individual, collective and inter-generational trauma and abuse I have faced across my life.
For Benji, Nat and Jaazi:
Yeehaw.
We needed to be bigger
and braver
and better
and kinder
and lighter.
We needed to know
that all of us
could carry our people forward.
That it is not just the fighter
who should live long
but you
and I
and everyone else
who loves and cherishes
Kevin Martens
Benjamin Harris
Nathaniel Nonis
and Jaasir Mahsom
both now
and yesterday
and in the future
and always:
we are made of nothing
but the most Creole dreams.
And at last the most Reconciling
Indigenous lifeways
leading back to something higher.
Something greater.
Something made of our own souls
and minds and hearts and bodies
finally wreathed in healing Kristang fire.
Papagayu Bedri,
may you soar over the waters
where they once bid you drown
and die.
Marusanggeru Onestu,
may you always honour the futures you see
in spite of all the tears
you must forever carry inside.
Giliang Kaladumbes,
may your voice always help
those most lost and afraid
finally learn to roar.
And Makaravedra Benetambes:
no matter what they do to you
may you never stop believing
that we could all be so much more
when we drift together.
When we at last learn to embrace our islands
our hidden terrors
and all of the most apocalyptic weather
forever shrouded in the greatest
dreaming darklight.
Jenti Kristang keninumbes.
Once the Last People
now may you lead the way forward
into endless, radiant
superindividuating
egalitarian might.