Recollections Of My Closet Poem by Paul Perkins

Recollections of my Closet - 1980 (dedicated to family and Brain H.)

I recall the time I
gave up my wife who
almost gave up the ghost,
who salvaged her sanity
via Ativan
in St. Mary's where
all the relatives died;

I recall sacred vow guilt,
giving up the home,
giving up the dreams
which gave no rest;

I recall giving up all women
only to fear they may be right
when they said
men were all the same;

I recall the visits
to my family
with fear they could not see
me;

Gave up drinking,
only to cry over a drunk lover;
Gave up the drunk lover
to help a run away teen queen
who lost his mind in a world
of cruel hatred
and doctors with more drugs
than oath;

I recall giving
up all I thought I wanted,
to find what is was
I needed;

I recall the day
I gave up explaining who I am,
why I am not what you thought
I would always be;

I recall clearly
the loneliness,
the futility,
of living another's hope,
another's implacable ideal;

I recall the child who
saw God's true wonders
in a handful of moss in a woods.