Stripping

3rd draft of a poem I have on here "The Great Play". It is in the confessional mode.

I wear it like polyester

This thing that you call, what is it    Nick

Yes, here I am mother, father, God

Everything you wanted

Everything but me

 

It fits quite well; I’ve grown into it you see

Wears like armor, like faux leather

Pretending to be organic

Synthetic, aesthetic, prosthetic

 

Now let’s be real

Let’s lower the guard

And undo the shiny buttons

Eight-teen years is a long time after all

 

I was born me, but --

Growing up has made me a stranger

You see, honesty becomes a sin

When you are not what you were meant to be

 

Religion turns its back on you

You are not with us

Like high school cliques

You have to be “our people”

 

There’s a prerequisite for love

And I just didn’t make the cut

So I threw on this skin

And danced about, hoping I would not be

Found out

 

Rehearsing lines to a play

The lines that God or whatever deity

Has written for me

The part I was meant to play

Reading words that in my mouth

Pretend to be mine

 

I excelled in biology, cutting open the frog

Discovering the workings, gears and cogs

Yet never really understanding what went wrong in me

Why I never could love correctly

 

Betraying the role I was built for

Betraying the genitals that are meant

To direct what the heart thinks�"

Sex is assigned, not offered

An order, not a suggestion

Then something goes wrong

Something intrinsic

They tell you it’s your fault

That you are lost, that you are deviant

My god, it becomes a crusade against you

 

It’s a choice between wrong and wrong

Heretic or Liar, Heretic or Liar

And so in those pubescent days

In the hallway, in the locker room, in my head

I chose liar�"it’s only a phase

I chose liar�"it can go away

I chose liar�"I’m just confused, confused, confused

 

I chose to be yours

 

 

Author's Note

Tell me your opinions and suggestions.

Reviews

[Larry Davis]

I can totally relate to what you're saying. Growing up as a gay kid from the South, I would always hear the church folks about homosexuality as a sin. They talked in such a negative way, I didn't want to come out.

[ocean_side]

Sounds like there's a lot of bitter sorrow behind this. You captured the issue of what society & religion make homosexuality out to be quite well; and how wrong it makes those affected feel.
It's truly sad, that we can't all love the same, regardless of man or woman; society just has to make gaiety feel shamed.

Great piece, great expression.