Finding Freedom

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

I was not always openly gay, having grown up as a youth and young man at a time when gay relationships were a criminal offence and considered a sin but most religions. 

Now, thankfully, the broader-thinking West at least has learned to accept that being gay is genetic and no more unnatural than being born. Sadly, though, not everyone among the heterosexual majority shares this enlightened view. Across the world, even in the so-called ‘liberal’ West, gay boys and girls, men and women, are growing up in a gay-unfriendly environment, encouraged to believe they are the lowest of the low for being gay.

It took me some time to stop feeling self-conscious about being gay, to understand (and act on it) that we must never let anyone put us down for our sexuality, least of all ourselves.

For whatever reason (whatever our colour, creed, sex or sexuality) many of us are often made to feel slaves to that fickle creature, 'Convention'; the inner self deserves better.

FINDING FREEDOM

I once walked narrow streets

in the bitter cold and dark of winter,

body, mind and spirit

crying out to be heard, trusted,

loved, and free

No one in those narrow streets

gave me a second look or seemed

to care that I was in crisis,

duped into believing I had no right

to even be there

I paused at a bright shop window

whose lights and colours turned me

into a patched-up clown

(minus wide smile) in a circus ring,

raining sawdust

Suddenly, a burst of wild applause

for my doppelganger clowning it up

in the window and loving

every minute, soaking up applause

like spring rain

I raised a smile, a chuckle, a laugh,

and continued along the narrow streets

that seemed broader now,

people nodding and smiling at me,

a common humanity

Apollo peeped from behind a cloud

as if to complement a metamorphosis,

welcome a lonely gay man

into the human race, its prejudices

melting away

Now, as I walk those same streets

in the bitter cold and dark of winter,

body, mind and spirit

rejoice for having found a voice, love,

and freedom

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014