Hell is a Place called Closet

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

Sometimes life gets too much for us and we feel a need to run away from everything and everyone. Only, there is no running away unless it is to that dark, distant place we call loneliness. Oh, we might plan to stay just a little while, but time has a nasty habit of playing tricks on us, and before we know it half a lifetime has passed.

It is always good to talk over problems with a good listener. Never bottle things up (I speak from harsh personal experience) as they will always break out in the end, sometimes with devastating results. As regular readers will know, I put a severe nervous breakdown many years ago down to just that.  There were many reasons for the breakdown, not least my having to keep my sexual orientation a secret from friends and family during teenage years and young manhood; gay relationships were illegal in the UK in those days. 

The gay factor was part adventure, part nightmare for me during those closet years. I’d cruise when and where I could for the company of other gay guys. My dream was that one day I would not only be free to acknowledge my sexuality, but also let a gay-friendly world in on my secret. That dream has been partially fulfilled; we even have pro-gay legislation here in the UK and other parts of the West to back it up. Tragically, though, it, is not the same for gay people worldwide. Mind you, there is no legislating for bad attitude; homophobia is alive and kicking just about everywhere.

Gay or straight, the going may be tough sometimes, even most of the time, but it has been my experience that it pays to tackle the rough along with the smooth rather than keep putting off the inevitable until some proverbial tomorrow that will never come unless we focus on the kind of person we are not the kind of person we (or anyone else) might have preferred us to be. Once we focus on that, accept responsibility for it, and start making our own choices accordingly, only then have we earned the right to be counted among the world's free spirits.

Now. as I have said before in the blogs, whether or not a person decides to be openly gay is a personal choice and depends on his or her circumstances. I have no time for the ugly process of 'outing' people. Whatever the apparent reasons behind a person's decision, we should respect that decision; the chances are we don't know the whole story, and it's none of our business anyway ... or is it?

HELL IS A PLACE CALLED CLOSET

There’s a place

as gloomy as a hermit’s cave;

only, caves

don’t have holes in the roof

for bird droppings;

it’s a place as cold as a tram shelter

in winter;

only, no there’s no history

of tramlines;

it’s a place as scary as a graveyard

by moonlight, headstones letting slip

the letters of my name

I should leave

this gloomy cold, dead, place;

only, I long since

lost all sight of alternatives

(and choices);

a voice tells me to take a leap of faith

into the light;

only, it is so high, so far away,

and I’m scared;

I glimpse the tip of a bird’s wing 

through a hole

in my sky, can only wish it well clear

of human malice 

I hate this place,

yet I know it like I know the self

that never meant to stay 

as long as it did after mind-body-spirit 

met its demons

and only mind and body ran away, 

found faux safety

in a cave, leaving my spirit

to its imaginings 

of birds in flight and contending

with human nature

at its worst in this, the awful loneliness

of its despair

For sure, high time

I reconciled with alter ego after years

of its telling me to dry

my tears, leave this hell for a heaven 

of my own creation

instead of making do as best I can

with stereotypes

profiling differences, equating rights

with wrongs

and causing such chaos,

as to prevent fake news spreading,

being taken to heart and (worse) acted on

in good faith

Now, coming out, 

to show the world I'm made of far more

than meets the eye

so quick to judge us by appearances

and body language

incompatible with whatever imprint

of self-image

formative years may have nurtured

in circumstances

beyond its line of vision at the time, left

to find its own way,

by hook, by crook, by this or that random

learning curve

G-A-Y, ready to come in from a bitter cold,

integral to the oldest stories never told

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011, 2019

[Note An earlier version of this poem -appeared on the blog in 2011 under the title 'The Place'.]