Identity, Dotting I's and Crossing T's

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

As regular readers will know, I was 'closet' for years, and had told relatively few people, not least because I had grown up in a homophobic society that was all but toxic. During that time, though, I was acutely aware of gossipy speculation on the part of family, friends and work colleagues as to why I did not appear interested, romantically at least, in the opposite sex. (I have always enjoyed the company of women, and always will.) A part of me was wary of Coming Out, the rest of me dug its proverbial heels in and took the view that if people wanted to know if I am gay, they can damn well ask!

I was late coming out to the world as a  gay man. Even now, 30+ years on, I am haunted by those closet years, no longer bitter, just sad’ more saddened, though, by the fact that there are (still) many gay people around the world, including the UK, who feel they cannot be openly gay for various socio-cultural-religious reasons. Why cannot everyone accept that we are as we are, and we are all different versions of the same common humanity?

As I have said many times on my blogs, and doubtless will again, our differences do not make us different, only human.

How anyone can fail to love and/or respect another person because of their sexuality is beyond belief. Take the world religions, for example, preaching love and peace, yet invariably among the first to condemn the whole LGBT ethos. We are a common humanity and LGBT folks are part of its past-
present-future, so the bigots among us need to get real, hopefully sooner rather than later.

IDENTITY, DOTTING I's AND CROSSING T's

For years, I lived with folks suspecting

I’m gay, but no one ever asked

just gave me the kind of look, day after day

that says I must me a bad person

for not complying with that convention

that pairs men with women

They hadn’t a clue, didn’t really know me

at all for making assumptions

grounded in years of getting mixed messages

from all sections of society,

whether it be bad press, or dogma written

on tablets of ages-old stone

For years, I carried the burden on my back

of living a lie, mind-body-spirit

left with no choice but seek the love it sought

in closet corners of a world

that balked at the likes of an LGBT mindset,
least worthy, best forgot

One day, without warning, upon awakening,

it struck me what I’d only dared

to argue with my own shadow, what every man,

woman, child, needs must own;

we are the sum of all our parts, and it’s they

that may yet make us human

I came out to family, friends, workmates, 
many of whom were shocked,
suggested I was but confusing fact with fiction
in a mad, fantasy flirtation
with homosexuality, inciting the rebel in me,
two fingers up at conformity

Now, your eyes as I wake you with a kiss
speak of love’s resolve to tell on us; 
although the world’s bigots condemn LGBT folks,
ask how we live conscience clear,
I can only answer with integrity and sincerity
“All the better for being me.”   

Copyright R. N. Taber 2020