Impasse

You taught me to bury deep inside who I really am
I couldn't "be" gay, you taught me,
because "acting" gay was wrong
And I grew up trying to avoid
"looking" gay or
"sounding" gay or
"dressing" gay or
ANYTHING gay
because, however tacitly, you
YOU
taught me I could not be gay.


So, my psyche learned to repress itself
by busying itself to the point of obsession
with how to avoid being found out

You taught me to hide my feelings from you
because I was a kid - a fucking kid
who just wanted to be accepted by his parents
his friends
his church
the world.
But I had to hide the real me, you taught me,
in order to feel loved.

So, I became a teenager who acted out in secret
All of my sexual experimentation happened
Because it happens for everyone, right?
But for me it happened in the dark
without advice
without answers to my questions
without joy

You taught me how to act, look, sound, dress ...
what to reveal, what to deny
And set me up to be miserable on the inside
but to always smile in your face so you wouldn't know it

So, as my sexual experimentation evolved
and I learned how my emotions and sex life were attached
My repression and my facade were much too intense
And felt to be around a whole lot longer than I was alive
somehow

So, I learned to keep it up into my 20s.
Experimentation in secret gave way to illicit behavior
in the gutter
in groups
in gravely dangerous places
created for my ilk
created by the likes of me
because secret lives and repressed souls
just naturally find their way to the gutter
it seems

And you find out, whether I tell you or not,
the world finds out
and I'm a disgrace, you all say,
be I gaunt and dying or
a fortunate, shell of a man in good health
because you taught me better.

Because you taught me better.

Because you fucking taught me better.