by Pierre Chambers, Community Health Worker
I find myself wondering
how it happened.
that I found pride
in whom I am,
joy in what I do,
and how I do it.
Coming from such ugliness
growing up gay,
being nothing to
family
church
and community.
I find myself wondering
how I learned to love me.
no one told me
that I was beautiful,
as I am.
I grew up wanting to be something
other than what I was,
just be like everybody else,
not be different.
Something I can see
in the mirror and smile at,
there were no examples,
revealing to me how to be.
No one to talk with
speaking truth into what I was/am.
I was alone,
and I had to figure
things out by myself.
until a stranger came along
and touched me.
in that special place.
then, I became alive.
I wanted to marry,
was told that that
was the correct thing to do,
the Christian thing to do.
There was no way,
I could marry a man,
so, I had to let go of that want.
I wanted children,
wanted to be a father.
I didn’t want to bring someone
I loved into this ugly world.
having to tell them
later that I was gay.
Yes, your father likes men,
wanted to love them.
I couldn’t suffer that exposure,
couldn’t take that rejection
by someone who said they loved me.
so, I had to refuse myself
that privilege and possible pain.
I wonder how it happened,
that I learned to love me.
couldn’t say it came from God
because they told me God
didn’t love me, and my kind.
Had me believing that lie
from the devil’s tongue they said.
But we all know
it was from man’s fear.
I might, rub off on him.
make him look like me,
make him want me, and then what?
Association might make him
want to come out.
make him want to feel
what he’s been suppressing
in his soul.
Recruit him!
Reveal to him what he’s been hiding,
from himself!
He feared what I was.
How is it,
that I love myself,
who I am,
just me.
By all rights I shouldn’t.
I’m glad I know, it’s alright too!
