A (Gay) Senior's Take On Schooldays

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

Most schools are on a half-term holiday here in the UK, and I can’t help wondering how many gay boys and girls are fretting about their awakening sexuality just as I did many years ago. (I was born in 1945)

When we are teenagers, we think we are alone and no one could possibly understand let alone share our distress. Yes, even these days it is rarely easy (never say never) to acknowledge we are gay, especially if we happen to be living in a gay-unfriendly home or school environment.

The irony is that, if only we knew it, there are sure to be other gay boys and girls in our school, maybe in our class even, running the same gamut of life changing emotions. 

Being gay is just part of who we are, and the sooner parents and everyone else accept that it is no one’s fault, no one is to blame and there is nothing unwholesome or unnatural about being born with a gay gene…the sooner we can start playing happy families, friends and neighbours again.

Is this poem autobiographical? Well, there are autobiographical elements in many of my gay-interest poems. So how much really happened and how much is pure imagination? Now, that would be telling…

A (GAY) SENIOR’S TAKE ON SCHOOLDAYS

We were naked in the showers

after Gym at school

and I could barely keep my eyes

off him

Although best friends for years,

at the same school,

I’d never felt anything like this

about him

Desire invaded my exposed self

like an alien from Mars,

yet I knew it meant me no harm

or him

Later, we sat next to each other

during Maths

and when his leg brushed mine

I froze

The teacher asked me a question

I couldn’t answer,

hadn’t been listening, my mind

elsewhere

We did our homework in my room

as we often did,

and each time he glanced my way

I nearly died

Homework done, time to turn up

the rock ‘n’ roll,

and jive like mad along with some

top pop idol

We had a friendly fight on my bed

as we often did,

but now it was an intimacy too far

and I kissed him

Kissed him hard, holding him down,

taking in his heat,

reluctantly letting go, by now afraid

of him

Head in hands, an awesome silence

killing me

till a whisper in my ear made it OK,

he wanted it too

We were lovers for but a short while;

in the end,

he decided he preferred girls, I’d lost

my best friend

Copyright R. N. Taber 2013