Reprieve

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

Many dreams are preferable to real life if only because, in them we can be our true selves and not as we sense others - even loved ones sometimes - expect us to be.

It is not uncommon, though, to discover that some dreams are unexpectedly compatible with real life, and even come true, often when we least expect it, and in the least expected places.

I could not face the world as a gay man for years, and the closet seemed a life sentence. It took a bad nervous breakdown in my mid-30's to help me get real about life and myself; a reprieve indeed.

REPRIEVE 

I had a cool car and a good job

and life was looking up for me;

yet, among shadows of the mind,

the better part of me knew

I couldn’t be happy without you

Years before we saw each other,

you came to haunt my dreams;

I’d tell myself it was but fantasy

in the heat of our embrace,

a sweet tasting sweat on my face

I dated girls to please the parents

but you were always at my side;

I’d call you names and mean them

as they’d slip into my bed

and I’d watch for you in my head

It was at the local library we met,

and you glanced up from a book,

made a mockery of my whole life

with a twinkle in green eyes

soon stripping my heart of its lies

We got talking. I let myself believe

I was glad to make a new friend

but my shadows insisted I felt more

than this, your cheeky grin

come to bring my defences down

One day I stumbled. You caught me

in your arms and held me there

then bent to kiss me on the mouth,

no matter what others might say

and, by default, I almost broke away

Love gave me a last minute reprieve

and let me kiss you back,

arms closing in around your neck,

for the better part of me knew

I couldn’t be happy without you

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008