Deliverance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Some people are in denial of sexual identity. In my case, years ago, I felt like a character in the wrong novel, being made to fit a story line to which nothing about me could relate, so how on earth was anyone else supposed to?

Most of us have been there, for a while at least. It is worse than being in prison because there are no bars on windows or locks on doors, only a growing desperation to be somewhere else.  Oh, we can play the blame game for as long as we like regarding the unfairness of being where we are, but we have no one to blame for staying there except ourselves.

True, world religions and various cultural 'taboos' don't exactly encourage gay people to think well of themselves, but think well of ourselves we should. We do not chose to be gay, it has to be in the genes or else there would not be millions of us around the world. Choice comes with whether or not we look the world in the eye or let it browbeat us into staying in a cold, lonely closet.

DELIVERANCE 

Heart heavy, sight dim

after years of pain, searching

for whom I so yearned

to give my life meaning beyond

getting up every morning

and going to bed at night, plotting

ways and means to get through

he next day, nothing going right,

like a character in a novel

crying to its creator for deliverance

from conventional fiction

wasted on caricature left craving

a gay storyline

Heart light, seeing clear

now there’s you to give me purpose,

a joy I never knew

although in my dreams I’d kiss you,

feel your arms close around

my trembling body, hacking away

at caricature, setting me free;

Now, letting a finer spirit course me,

lending the strength of two

so I may love you too; no pulp fiction

sucking up to society’s gripes.

but drama-documentary dispelling

its stereotypes

Gay love, some (still) say, is a lie,

but we know better, you and I

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2012

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears on the blog as well as in 1st eds. of The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]