Sexuality, No Backseat Driver OR Diversity, the Human Condition

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

Last week, I said I would post a new or revised poem as and when I can while I do battle with preparing a new collection of poems while also having to contend with various health issues. A reader suggests that I revise a poem I published here in early May "... because it just doesn't feel right." I have to agree so here is the revised version that will appear in the collection as and when I can get it together, not to mention find a UK publisher. 

Now, while I do not post readers’ comments, I will always reply if they give an email address.  Time and again, readers ask how to break free from a gay closet without losing family and friends who may well have no idea of their true sexuality.

There are, of course, no easy answers. My poems, though, try to reflect the power of love, not only in the sense of forming sexual relationships, but also in the wider sense of being a friend or part of a family.

More often than not, love will endure even where it may not triumph in quite the way/s we would wish. That said, the odds on its overcoming certain socio-cultural-religious objections are barely 50:50, often far less. So much depends on the family environment and how far people are willing to put love first even when it means (as they see it) compromising beliefs and principles they have probably been spoon fed since childhood. Some will compromise while, at the same time, such a compromise may well not be seen as proof enough of love for the man or woman who has just come out as a gay or transgender person. Both sides need to give some ground, especially in the early days, or any hope of reconciliation will only fade as time goes by.

Yes, Coming Out is a risk, but one worth taking (surely?) even in this so-called ‘modern’ age where, certain communities continue to live in the past. No one else can make the decision for us nor do they have the right. (As I see it, anyone who thinks they have a ‘right’ or ‘duty’ to ‘out’ another person is beneath contempt,)

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” James Baldwin (Giovanni’s Room)

This poem is a kenning.

SEXUALITY, NO BACKSEAT DRIVER or DIVERSITY, THE HUMAN CONDITION

Family,

they know me for all they

would have me be

no matter how hard I try

to make them see

I am no piece of clay

to be shaped

in any image but my own, for all

its faults and flaws

Friends,

they see other sides of me

for running with peers

all but bursting at the seams,

(it’s called growing up)

sharing certain thoughts, ideas,

hopes for a future

becoming clearer to me each day,

for breaking down walls

Lovers,

they know me for all they

would have me be

whether between clean sheets

or in your parked car

after closing time at some bar

on the other side

of town, giving all mind-body-spirit

its head

I am Sexuality, last seen on life's highway,

and no backseat driver for being gay

Copyright R. N. Taber 2019