Closet Fear

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

Yet again, I have been asked to publish a gay-interest post/poem on this blog; it has been on my gay-interest blog for several years. A reader writes, "I have a pc at home, but dare not risk reading your gay blog, and have to go to my local public library for that. I know that some members of my family read your general blog so please post more gay poems there so they might yet come to understand that being gay is neither crime nor sin."  Whether the writer is male of female, I have no idea, but I hope the poem helps, at least in part, to bring any family members to a greater understanding of the human heart as a free country and any God as a God of Love, regardless of any contradictory dogma by this or that religion. 

Here in the West, it has been my experience that many gay people take freedom of sexual identity for granted.  True, there is no denying that homophobia is still alive and kicking. Yet, I have listened over the years to chilling tales of how it is to be gay in countries where same sex relationships remain a criminal offence (Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and various African countries among many) punishable by a public whipping, prison or worse. I have learned to count my blessings…even during those low points in my life when they may otherwise have seemed too thin on the ground for much comfort.

Yes, the heart is a free country, not a prison; wherever its every beat expresses fear of exposure under pain of punishment, even death, that's more than an abuse of Human Rights, but makes any of any religious dogma advocating it the greater abuse or sin against humanity by far. Religion is meant to be an expression of love; no God of Love would condone hate crime in any shape or form. I left my local Church Sunday School for this very reason at the age of ten years, four years before I realised and acknowledged (to myself at least) that I am gay. 

It is a tragedy for the West that many if not most immigrant families bring their religious dogma with them, forcing their gay young people into the kind of closet that public opinion forced me into years ago; one which resulted in a mental breakdown in my early 30's and a suicide attempt. Even now, I bitterly regret not coming out to family, friends and work colleagues, whatever their take on homosexuality, until my early 40's. Regular readers will know that I do not subscribe to any religion. At the same time, nor do I consider religion to have a monopoly on a sense of spirituality; the latter and homosexuality (or gender identity) are not incompatible. As I have said so many times on both blogs, our differences do not make us different, only human.

CLOSET FEAR

No one can know we’re lovers,

everyone sees us as good friends

or lany peace of mind for love stands

no chance

No one can know we share a bed

whenever I stay over at your place,

taking each day as it comes, for good

or ill

No one can know we’re gay men

playing hide-and-seek with shadows,

one mind-body-spirit no less deserving

of nurture

No one must guess our secret,

war weary of judgmental stereotypes

dragging us down even as we recharge

its batteries

No one must catch a single look

between us that even hints at a story

that dare not be told though reworked

for centuries

No one must guess we’re lovers

who would cheer us publicly stoned

to death to satisfy an inhumanity baying

for blood

Yet, we will lie, bodies entwined,

away from prying eyes and loose talk,

make love among far kinder hypotheses,

dream on…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015