where the wild things were
By kevin martens wong zhi qiang
originally published monday, 17 april 2023
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.
In your garden, in the park
in the last things to emerge from the ark:
the Last People, and the first Dreamtiger?
The ones who always made their mark
on the history that was washed away
in the terrifying dark
that came for us all,
and never stopped arriving, 75,010 years after the fall.
But you? You are surviving.
You have built a city far out beyond the seawall;
a thalassopolis not seen since Atlantis's decline and Malacca's entrepot.
You have built
—what—
another Singapore?
a second Sundaland
just another means to an end—
a trap clutched in the tiger's paw?
It's whatever you want it to be.
It's the places and faces that Maurice most likely saw;
it's the eternity that was meant to be.
And it could be a home for us all,
especially those so wild
they absolutely know what it means to be lost.
Along the farthest shore,
little lion child;
this is where the exiles finally make it home.
This is landfall.