Boy George, Forgive Me
Lipgloss
Snow-white page whispers up at me:
"Why don't you trust me?
Am I not your lover?
Have I not already seen all sides of you?
Why are you still coming to me
wearing these masks, this make-up?
False eyelashes?
Corsets?"
I apply more lipgloss
pretend not to hear.
Talking of lipgloss we went to see Boy George in concert the other night. It was good, but I've never been greatly enthralled by him. He was an '80's icon and he's got a good soul voice. That's all. But I remember being shocked when I first saw him on 'Top Of The Pops' when I was - what? - thirteen. I was too young to have noticed glam rock or Bowie. I'd noticed Adam Ant - I suppose he was 'glam', but always seemed masculine. So when this gender-bender (wasn't the term 'gender-bender', trotted out in the media at the time, just a way of saying 'bender', but more legitimately?) - when s/he flounced out of the telly into my mum and dad's living room it was genuine shock. Incredulousness. Embarrassment. Perhaps because something inside me recognised a kindred spirit. (Not that I wanted to dress up in funny white dresses and ribbons and dreadlocks. I didn't. Still don't). But kindred in some way. Maybe I just liked his rebelliousness. Maybe I had an inkling I'd be 'one of them', even if I didn't want the frocks. Anyhow, there was a simultaneous homophobic crackdown in my psyche. "NO!" said a voice. "You're not allowed to like this!"
So I didn't.
But last week I bought tickets for his concert, nevertheless, in a mood of nostalgic repentance, now I'm all grown-up and at ease. And he WAS good.
More on the above poem later. I went on an Arvon course recently which is still having repercussions. I'm still feeling the ripples of it. Realising that perhaps, subtly, it's already changed me... But I'll write about that next time...
