Home » Poems » Charley Davidson » Perception

Perception

Your body gets tense, you start twitching 
Your mouth keeps opening, as if to ask something  
But instead you just start babbling 
 
Talking about everything and nothing  
Making jokes and acting foolish 
To make it seem like you're not anguished  
 
Your thoughts going a thousand miles per hour 
Your face distortioned, by the pervertedness  
Of a way of being, towards which, people have acceptance  
 
You look at them and you judge, 
What gives you the right to look down on them? 

What if I were to tell you I was part of them? 
Would you still think they should all be condemned? 
 
I would always take their side and you didn’t know why  
I wanted to tell you but you would just deny  
The  truth about the words coming out of my mouth 

I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry  
Or just dig my own hole, and in it die 
 
I had known for years  
And each year it would amplify  
But I continued to falsify  
The truth about my sexuality
Just so you could, in your ignorance, continue to love me 
 
But why was it up to me to hide? 
To not be able to have pride  
About the broadside of my life 
It is a part of who I am 

It is part of who I am ! NO! It is who I am! 
Why can't I just say it without fear of being denied 
The right to be happy and not have my tastes defied 
 
After a certain point in time, 
I could no longer bare, to look at you glare 
And swear at people that had that particular "flare" 
 
I sat you down & told you both  
I could feel my heart wanting to pound out of my chest  
My soul wanting to leave my body in fear of being supressed 
By the anger and disappointment expressed  
By the people who always said to love me unconditionally 
 
From then on, they barely ever held me 
I could always feel them looking down on me 
And treated me as if I was something ugly 
Something so repugnant to the eye  
That you had to look away  
 
From then on, it was a choice, my choice! 
It was only something of the moment, a phase! 
Because that was not the way I was raised  

Their denial was the worst part 
They would not speak to others about it  
Like if of me, they were ashamed  
 
A part of my life was put aside 
And along went my pride 
Every night to fall asleep, I cried  
 
The last thing I said to my parents  
Was to accept me as I am... 
Or let me go  
 
Now mom and dad I tell you  
 
What if I were to tell you I was part of them? 
Would you still think they should all be condemned? 
 
Because I want to be able to openly say  
Yes! I am gay!

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