acting years

i am a homo
i get yelled at from trucks
and flip my wrists unintentionally
let my voice sing instead of grate
and i have a pastry problem
because croissants remind me
of the game i played in france
guessing if men were gay
or just european
and of my french lover, far away
and of baking in the kitchen
while singing depressing, upbeat songs
because i'm happy, but lonely too.
i am a homo
i get scared of HIV
and i yell at people for getting too scared of HIV
and i hate other gay people for being
more sapiens than homo
because i am a homo
and i never was a good actor.
i wanted that so, so bad
bad, not badly
it was all bad, my acting years
wanting my spot at the table
trying not to cross my legs
in reality i just want to plate the food
tend the garden that made it
combine pretty colors and lovely spices
and go to bed with another homo
who yells, "damn straight!"
at the car that calls us gay.
i'm just a white homo
spending tears on a crisis
that ravaged bodies
and sometimes souls
while others stood back with disgust;
didn't matter if i was homo, queer, gay,
fag, faggot, confused
my blood is still a horror movie
and my grandparents still
are holocaust jews
and we're forgetting
that assimilation is survival
italians, homos, yids
and that somebody will be next
maybe you
and you will forget
how you raged at our pain
and then at our power
you will look back on your acting years
to see that they paid off
and nobody cares
about the cost
not even you.
give it some time.