In this poem I look at the later half of my teenage years and recall a difficult journey as I started questioning who I was and who I wanted to be. Knowing I wanted to be female at a time when that wasn’t allowed meant I had to keep my real identity secret as I didn’t want to get bullied or even worse beaten up by some boys who would have viewed me a threat to the masculinity they were told they had to wear as a badge of honour. This was not an easy poem to write but I’m really glad I’ve written it. I’ve given it the poem Living A Lie I hope you enjoy the read.
Living A Lie
Looking back through memories frozen in time
I realise how much I’ve been through
school was hard when there were secrets to keep
and in the Scotland I grew up in
there things I had to keep hidden
for fear of peers labelling me queer
or using other terms of abuse
to hurt me and others like me
I knew boys excited me in ways no girl ever could
I cared more about what they were wearing
I shared secrets with them
about the kind of stuff
no boy would ever be told
in colder days I kept quiet
though often dismissed I knew my feelings were real
though for the most part I stayed silent
the implied threats of violence
was not something I wanted to test
sexuality and gender were seldom if ever discussed
in case boys laughed or girls blushed
who knows how many dreams were crushed
by the macho culture of the times
in the 1970’s though legal in England and Wales
being LGBT was still a criminal offence up here
this made no sense yet some of my mum’s friends
called it an English disease
despite the fact they would crawl on their knees
to save their queen and their union
they accepted things as they were
rather than look for solutions
to problems they would sooner ignore
or leave at someone else’s door
until it came to their own
and it was their son and daughter
who decided to come out
no wonder certain issues
were never talked about at school
as a culture of bullying was tolerated
and those were different knew why
living a lie was easier
than telling a truth that would cost you friends
and make sure you never got the chance
to dance at Christmas disco’s
as a kiss under the misseltoe
remained a distant dream
to be enjoyed only by others
© Gayle Smith 2018
Skirtingroundmylife 