Caren Krutsinger Poet Lyric

His Heart Kept Saying No

Everyone told him to come out
His LTBGQ friends anyway
All six of them 
For that is how many lived in his small town
in the Midwest 
in the heart of Nebraska

The pressure was great, 
and part of him yearned 
To say something to his parents
To test the water,
To see if they would still love him
It was a quandary
But his heart kept saying no

His friends did not let up.
They hounded him for years.
Everything in his heart said no.
He did not feel ready
Until he was seventeen.
When he finally did
Thinking it would be a relief.
They loved him after all.

He spent the rest of the year 
Sleeping on friends couches
Waiting for high school to end
So he could leave town 
Never returning

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Gershon Wolf June 18, 2020 at 11:01 PM Small towns don't cotton too well to this stuff. I lived and worked in Warsaw, Indiana one summer, c. 6,000 Church-going folks. I left well before the (Jewish) Sabbath, thank God, and didn't return til late Sunday night... Met one Bahai girl there, 18 years old, just waiting to finish high school --- and never ever return, which she didn't. Conformity rules in those kind of towns. Resonant write. Thanks, Caren Caren Krutsinger June 19, 2020 at 8:29 PM Actually this happens in Kansas City all the time; ALL the time.