Prelude to a Coming of Age

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

Today's poem appeared on my gay-interest blog in 2014 after a teenager emailed me to say he thinks he is gay, and asks how can he be sure? Five years on, and another young person, still at school, has  asked the same question.Well, it isn't rocket science. Anyone more physically attracted to their own than the opposite sex is almost certainly gay; it only gets complicated if we are convinced family and friends will turn against us for various socio-cultural-religious reasons.

I wrote this poem when I was 14 years-old, and beginning to come to terms with being gay; it would be another 40+ years, though, before it appeared in print. Although I enjoyed a sex life of sorts, it was like engaging with shadows until my late 30's. In hindsight, I wish I had come out to family and friends years earlier, but same sex relationships were a criminal offence in those days, and I was afraid people I cared about would think ill of me. Here in the UK, there is pro-LGBT legislation now, yet here is someone in a cosmopolitan city like London facing much the same dilemma as I did all those years ago. [Incidentally, he specifically asks that I continue to post gay-interest poems on this blog from time to time "... because parents and the like need to people like me dare not a access a gay blog as I share a computer with the rest of my family."]

One of humanity's prevailing tragedies is that we cannot legislate for human nature.

All I can say is that if it feels right to come out to family and friends, GO for it, and if it doesn't, bide your time. Trust your instincts. Friends and family may well have guessed anyway, and are only waiting for you to raise the subject. Whatever, they may need time to get used to the idea, just as we do ourselves. A true friend and close family will always be there for you. Never mistake an initially negative reaction for outright rejection. Sadly, though, rejection is a risk we take.

Those adults, especially parents, inclined to assume that children and young people don’t know their own minds regarding sexuality (and much else besides) need to think again, and think through what it means for a young person to acknowledge he or she is gay.  

As for parent-child relationships, gay or straight, is it not, after all, no more or less than a question of love?

Those who condemn LGBT relationships. especially for religious reasons are hypocrites, given that religion is meant to be predominantly about love.While Ido not subscribe to any religion, neither can I conceive of any God as being homophobic. Sexuality and religion should not be mutually exclusive, and anyone embracing both, even if it remains pragmatic - dor whatever reason - to stay in some proverbial closet, should not think badly of themselves for it. Closets are real, though, and can be cold, lonely places; religious dogma and socio-cultural conventions have a LOT to answer for, as do those who would 'out' someone before they are ready, a despicable act.

As I have said so often on the blogs, and will continue to do so, our differences do not make us different, only human, and no less deserving of respect for our place in a common humanity than anyone else.

PRELUDE TO A COMING OF AGE

Saw a boy and girl kissing

under a blossoming cherry tree,

and wished it were me

I longed for such an embrace,

to hear words of love in my ear,

and wiped away a tear

Oh, for those lips on mine,

fuelling this frantic desire in me

to be yours, to be free…

They made a fine couple,

pink confetti blowing in a breeze

driving them to their knees

I could only turn away,

but imagine a lovemaking divine

and wish it were mine

Saw a boy and girl kissing

under the blossoming cherry tree

and wished she were me

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: This poem appears under the title 'Acknowledging Sexuality' in On the Battlefields of Love [poems] by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]