usul
By kevin martens wong zhi qiang
originally published monday, 19 august 2024
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.
The test of a man isn’t what you think he’ll do. It’s what he actually does.
Frank Herbert
Dune (1965)
Perhaps when you wake up, at last,
you will realise that
realising that this was all a dream—
believing that we could somehow still see
a vision of the past
coming back here to be
gripped—
embraced—
held tight and held fast—
against the unrelenting rain, you
had to learn to uncall yourself
Muad'Dib
and you learn to feign
blissful reverence
for the impure and the profane.
You learn that all the beauty, intelligence,
creativity and empathy in the world
does not matter one iota
if you are gay, because
Gaia doesn't care.
The worlds stay the same.
The spice hangs still and untouched
in the dazzling air.
You Fremen—
you Kristang—
are they the same?
The galaxies turn, indifferent to the
glare of themselves
refracted in each and every grain
of sand
lapping at your heels by the lakes
and mountains
and riveroceans
of Pedra Draku—
Caladan—
it never becomes you
to not cry.
To pretend to be a man
when you are more than any lie.
You are every dream and darkness
learning that the best and only way to bear witness
is to take a stand.
Kwisatz Haderach—
tell me
does it really all well and truly
match
or are you just playing pretend?
What grand
terrors are still yet to hatch?
What fearful errors are still yet to scratch
themselves into your beloved land?
Walk wildly
into the desert within.
To be human
is simple.
One word.
One world:
withstand.