A source of frustration, my school sex education

My elderly teacher although terribly kind

was not well prepared for a teenagers’ mind

‘Andrew, this condom, roll it down this banana

I can hear giggles from someone. Is that you Pollyanna?’

Andrew struggled at first to get the sheath on

‘Miss!’, Jason shouted, ‘Andrew’s banana is two inches long!’

The default is hetero but what about gay?

I had a burning question for Miss but never dare say

It quite unexpected but for me not so weird

when Miss in her 60s said she liked men with a beard

Wish I could go back now and tell Miss so do I

Nothing quite as sexy as a beard on a guy

Before the bell rang, just before class was over

‘Miss’, I wanted to say, ‘I get my sex education from Mr Grover’

During his lessons, I’d be imagining that   

my hands were all over his beard and banana, as I sat at the back

 

Perfecting the art of the squint  during a McDonald’s stint

Escaping the gloom in the male changing room

Late 1994, the first time I saw

this guy from the grammar school strip to his jock

I thought it rude not to glance what’s under his pants

My eyes couldn’t stop, my eyes were on lock

He had that grammar school voice my co-workers despise

So given worst job in the kitchen, he was stationed on fries

Every chance I’d be skipping me on burger flipping

Yet allowed me some spying at Grammar Guy frying

Getting sweaty whilst cooking, I couldn’t stop looking

at Grammar School Guy through the flames of my griddle

Just imagine a burger with his meat in the middle  

Chelsea v Arsenal

Dad watched the match, I watched the players

Spending longer looking at George Michael

than learning his lyrics

Smuggling copies of Gay Times into my bedroom

just to see guys like me

Creeping downstairs whilst parents asleep

to watch bad straight porn

on Television X, just to see a man naked

The Queen’s Arms, Brighton. My first gay pub

Heart a flutter, legs like mush 

Street was George, my teenage crush

Here’s where I learnt: bigger the fish, bigger the tackle

From me as a teen, clever at not being seen

Fancying men, being called ‘one of them’

George and Danny, all my teenage crushes

Sexy male schoolteachers, adrenaline rushes

Balls and sports, men in shorts

Football with Dad, both happy and sad

Dad watching one way, me quite the other

Nothing beats a good tackle seen undercover

 

I have learnt what it means to have a body,

to be a body, to inhabit the world here and now

See me through. No. See through me. No.

I am not that transparent, I am a body

A complex historied well

of senses, emotions, proximities, and encounters

A body that has learnt resilient being. developing tactics of seeing

I would go back to former me and tell him

to prolong my stareat the handsome bear

and not in the least bit care.