The Advocacy Council for Human Rights

by Gene Naden 

The brilliant 20^th century German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: 

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.” 

I heard these words a decade ago but only now do I recognize my own struggle within them. 

Gay Fred says he could never make love to a woman.
Successfully.
George says whenever he made love to his wife it felt like rape.
Like he was being raped.
Bill says he has to visualize a man to perform.
To perform with a woman.

 I envy them.
Because they know who they are.
They know their place.
Their place on gay.com.
In Facebook.
In the Pride Parade.
In a bar on Halsted Street. 

Gay men.

 Their personal advertisements read,
“Mature gay man seeks stable man for friendship and more.”

My ad would read,
“Arguably mature, sort-of-gay man seeks stable man or maybe woman for something.”

Or consider a letter, a postal message
With two destinations.
Maybe two return addresses, too.

I was lost in space,
orbiting the moons of Jupiter.
I landed on icy, cratered Ganymede,
Found and entered one of Rilke’s locked rooms,
and browsed a book in a “very foreign tongue.”

I will never be a simple man.
Thankfully.

by Gene Naden
rainbowactivist@gmail.com

Donny, you were my first friend, my best friend, my only friend.
We made up stories and acted them out.
Inspired by Gunsmoke, The Rifleman and Rawhide.

I stayed overnight most weekends.
In the big double bed upstairs.

You discovered Little League baseball.
I tried it.
It didn’t interest me.
I would rather be making out.
Or just acting

Then you started talking about girls.
What was this?
I was mystified.
I had no interest in them.

We drifted apart. It hurt.
I realized I had lost you.
There was no one I could tell,
Nowhere I could go.

One day I took a long walk in the forest
Then a long hot bath.
I cried in the tub.
No one asked why.
No one asked why.
Why.

Still a boy, I silently swore I would forget.
Forget what it felt like.
To sleep with Donnie.

I never did.