What Happened? Poem by Sandra Osborne

Does it worry you now?
It did not before,
When you did not know,
Why now?

What triggered your reaction?
Who pulled the switch?
Was it you, or society
Who condemned me?

Did you think?
Or was it a “reflex of training”?
Did you do what was expected,
What you thought was expected,
Or just what you thought?

Yeah, we were friends.
We used to laugh,
At times we even cried.
Yeah, we had fun.

And we started to trust,
We started to talk,
You of you
And I of me.

You changed then,
What happened?
Was your circle broken
Was your world upset?

What happened to us?
What happened
When you found out I was different
Than what you had conceived?

Could you please explain,
Was it all just a game, my friend,
There inside your mind?

You always told me “Be Myself”
You told me we were friends.
Then you flung me from your world,
I did not fit in.
No I didn’t understand that day,
The hate clear in your eyes,
And I knew that we were friends no more,
When I told you I was gay.


Written February 6,1984