For Marian’s Prompt at Real Toads about coming out Gay along with a song from Boy Erased.
Let’s Play Pretend
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” Oscar Wilde
So this is a poem where we imagine coming out.
We imagine how we would feel.
We pretend we know what it is like.
But those of us who are born
with Straight Priviledge –
can never know.
We relate things about people we know –
Who are Lesbian, Homosexual, Transgender,
Transexual, Bisexual, Gay, Questioning…
We listen to music that is calculated to wring tears
from a stone.
My best friend and sister of my soul
Is A Lesbian.
I know all about her coming out,
Her use of drugs and alcohol.
Hell, I did a lot of those drugs with her myself
and got equally as drunk.
But do I know what it was like for her?
Did I feel the pain of her lover leaving her
and breaking her heart?
No I did not.
I am not going to pretend I do.
I will continue to love her
the sister of my soul
and pray the world treats her
as she deserves.
She is one of the finest people I know.
And we straight people
pretending we know,
pretending we understand,
well, we can keep on pretending.
It makes us appear cool.
kanzen sakura 
Dec 13, 2018 @ 14:44:43
Trust me on this, it’s not something you want to experience. That said, we need straight allies. Taking people for who they are is huge.
Dec 13, 2018 @ 15:02:43
Yes it is. At my wedding all of my guests were gay or lesbian, except for 6 people. 50 people. His family almost shit.
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Dec 13, 2018 @ 15:04:45
Perhaps we can never know what it is for another. But a broken heart is a broken heart, and that is something most of us get to experience. It hurts, it hurts a lot. You are right there are things we can never know. But we can be open, when someone wants to share, to help us know. Wonderful poem of let’s pretend!!
Dec 13, 2018 @ 15:07:11
Yes indeed
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Dec 13, 2018 @ 16:35:55
I’ve “evolved” and THANK GOD! I will stick up for love – I’ve been humbled and embarrassed by the way I used to think – and we have a responsibility to speak out (or so I believe) in a way that doesn’t alienate, but lets others know that narrow minded thinking and hate are not good – that we must at least try and understand and have compassion. I know some people who will never change their religious beliefs, and that doesn’t make them evil… but they do have compassion and are not as judgemental as “back in the day”. Of course, some still are… just a very heavy topic…
Dec 13, 2018 @ 16:42:24
Yes it is. Believing in homesexuality being evil is sad. I know many people who will quote you from the Bible that it is evil and they firmly stick to it. When I throw back to them that the laws in Leviticus which most of them pull out, that that is for the priests in the temple, conducting temple business. They will usualy splutter and puff and very loudly tell me I know not of which I speack, that God created man and woman, not man and man. Lord I have heard that until I am sick of it. I am grateful that my family raised me to look at the inner person, that they always were kind to my friends and understanding. After my mother died, I received many cards of condolence from these friends. One and all they praised my mother for her open mind and heart and her generous spirit. My husband’s family is so conservative in this matter – almost backwards. I do not avoid these arguments with them. I meet them head on because I believe in the sanctity of love and compassion. I wish so many people did as well. I cannot imagine what my friends go through. I just know I love and accept them and my family as well. They were good to me when I had cancer, when I lost my parents, through various struggles of my existence and for this, I will walk through fire for them if I have to.
Dec 13, 2018 @ 17:43:03
Thanks Toni — I knew my father well, and was there for his coming out (he left my mother to live wild in New York City for several seasons before settling down with one guy for the next 30 years): Hell, I was still a virginal 17 when he took me around the leather bars of New York–my sexuality was still .. academic. But I sure tried to prove with a vengeance I was hetero in the years to follow — sheesh. Not proving I was straight, but me-sexual, my desire, not his. Anyway as I posted, his gay conversion therapy worked the other way. (It convinced him of homosexuality was holy). Dunno if that’s what makes me a postchristian, but it contributes … and chastity settles deeply on the far side of my life. Anyhoo … also in this mix is a mother who is as fundamentalist as my dad was New Age jihadist.
Dec 13, 2018 @ 18:17:16
An interesting growing up. I always suspected my mother had leanings due to her having intense friendships with women when I was growing up. This helped contribute to my heavy drug use, although I knew I knew she always loved me. I was a wild teen and adult. My motto was burn baby burn, disco inferno
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Dec 13, 2018 @ 23:34:52
Real empathy is not really possible after all. Even in what is touted as the “community”, the lived experiences of different people are hardly ever similar because when there’s no straight privilege, there are others like the male privilege, the cisgender privilege, the white privilege, et al. That’s why we discuss intersectionality a lot when we consider these hardships faced for being who you are, and exercising your own will and need for desire and love.
Dec 14, 2018 @ 02:42:00
That’s a powerful write and yes we cannot truly know another’s journey of pain- but only offer our understanding and support… it’s the way we help one other move forward.
Dec 14, 2018 @ 06:20:35
Allies! Necessary.
Dec 14, 2018 @ 06:35:24
Well, yeah
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Dec 14, 2018 @ 08:44:46
I would have loved to be at your wedding. Smiles.
Dec 14, 2018 @ 10:18:48
We can only try—- and it all starts with listening.
Dec 14, 2018 @ 10:21:14
Exactly. Actually, it all begins with caring.
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Dec 14, 2018 @ 13:52:51
Love, caring, listening, all those things and more.