How They Met (18 page)

WHAT A SONG CAN DO

If I didn’t have music, I don’t know

if I could ever be truly happy.

Happiness is music to me. Like when

I am in Caleb’s room, playing

my guitar for him, watching him

close his eyes to listen and knowing

he understands what I am

singing. That is all I need

to make a room full of happiness—

two boys, one love, and a song.

I think the reason my parents wanted me

to play classical music was because

it didn’t have any words. They would keep me

as a sound, not a voice. But I had

other ideas. I blew off the recorder,

did not bow to the violin, benched the piano, saved

up for a guitar. Then I used it to write

love songs for boys, and sad songs for love.

I sang myself to find myself

in a language far from my parents’

expectations. I taught myself the strings,

the chords, the fretting. But I did not

have to teach myself the words.

They’d always been there, notes to myself,

waiting for the music to bring them out.

All I had to do was recognize the possible

music and the songs were everywhere.

It is not something I have control over,

no more than I can control the sights

that appear before my eyes. I will be staring off

in class, barely hearing the echo of

my teacher’s words, when suddenly

a verse will arrive free-form in my thoughts.

when I look out a window

I wish for you on the other side

even if you’re not there

I can see you in the clouds

As I transcribe the words in my notebook,

I can hear the sound of it in my head.

Many teachers have caught me strumming

an imaginary guitar, trying to find the chords

before they vanish with the next thought.

The first time I went out with Caleb,

this happened to me. We were talking

in the park, having a conversation that lasted

the afternoon and the evening,

finding all of our common coincidences,

baring some of our unfortunate quirks.

At one point he went to get us sodas,

leaving me with my thoughts and the trees.

I was elated to have found someone

who could be both interested and interesting.

My thoughts revealed themselves

in the terms of a song.

you could be

the leaf that never falls from the tree

you could be

the sun that never leaves the sky

this might be

the happy ending without the ending

this might be

a reason to try

When he returned to me, he had two bottles

in his hands, and I was making furious leaps

into my notebook, playing the ghost guitar

and singing solos to the birds around me.

I apologized, embarrassed to be caught

showing myself so early, but he said

it was charming, then asked me if I needed time

to finish my refrain. Perhaps it was because he said

something so perfect, or perhaps it was because

the song made me brave, but I asked him

if he wanted to hear it, and when he said yes,

I sang to him, accompanied only by

the guitar in my head and the beat

of my heart. When I was done, there was

a moment of absolute silence, and I felt

like the ground had been pulled out from under me

and I was about to fall far. But then the ground

came back, as he told me it was wonderful,

as he asked me to sing it to him again.

It is a sad fact of our present times

that it’s nearly impossible to turn on the radio

and hear a gay boy with a guitar.

Where are the indigo boys, to show me the way?

Caleb teases me, because while

he has a gay music collection—pop queens

and piano boys—I am, he insists, a closet

lesbian. So I play him some Dylan, some Joni,

some Nick Drake, and I tell him there is

room for me to sing about the two of us

tangled up in blue under a pink pink pink

pink moon. Music, like love,

cannot be defined, except

in the broadest of senses.

My father complains, my mother stays silent.

My father says it’s not the music he minds,

but that I play it so loud. They want me

to sing in the basement, but I can’t think

with the laundry and the cobwebs—

down there, all my songs begin to have

pipes. So I become a bedroom Cinderella

on a tighter deadline, allowed to sing loud

until the hour-hand tips the ten. Then I strum

softly, sing in a whisper.

I think they would like the songs better

if I left out the names, or changed

the pronouns.

No more danger.

Time’s a stranger.

When I’m in his arms.

In his arms.

He could break me.

But instead he wakes me.

When I’m in his arms.

In his arms.

I am not the first person

to avoid the second person.

But I am certainly the first person

to do it in my house.

I never thought I would end up with

someone who wasn’t possessed

by music in the same way I am.

I imagined a relationship of duets,

of you play me yours and I’ll

play you mine. Caleb doesn’t

even listen to the music I like. He dances

instead, frees himself that way

while I prefer the quieter corners,

the blank pages. Part of my music

is being alone, having that time

to shut down all the other noises

to hear the tune underneath.

Sometimes I retreat when he

wants me most. Sometimes

he wants me most when I

retreat. I will let the phone ring,

let the IM blink, and he will know

that I am there, not realizing I am

also in another place. I still sing him

songs before I am ready, sing him

back the moments he has missed.

as if to say,
this is where I was

when you couldn’t find me
.

The sound of my voice means

I have returned to him, ready

for a different kind of duet,

that delicate, serendipitous pairing

of listened and sung. He accepts that,

and wants more.

black ink

falls on the blue lines

spelling out silences

harboring words

you think

my love’s not the true kind

unanswering questions

do not disturb

but I’m not leaving you

when I leave you

I’m not forgetting

that we’re getting somewhere

I’m just trying

to figure my part of this

my place in the world

with you standing there

with you standing there…

Our local coffee hangout decides to throw

a weekly open mic night. I decide to go

as a member of the audience, unsure

about playing in a town that knows me

unwell. A local band snarls through

three songs, then a girl from my school

recites poems from a long black book.

I realize I can do this, that I want to be heard,

that it’s possible I have something to say.

Word spreads, and all the next week,

my friends tell me to do it, convince me

they’ll be there next time. And that is perhaps

the most surprising thing, to feel such support

for this secretive calling. So I sign my name

to the roster, and Caleb makes fliers

on his computer. He slips them into lockers

and strangers from school tell me they’ll be there.

Sometimes I’ve skipped study hall and

practiced in the abandoned stairwell by

the auditorium. Now I’m seeing how many

people have overheard. They have listened in.

I practice past my curfew, past midnight,

into dreamtime. In a moment of weakness,

to fend them off from laying down the law, I tell

my parents I have a gig coming up, as if

they would be proud of me singing in public.

My mother, polite, says it sounds nice.

My father tells me it had better not interfere

with my homework. I tell him it won’t,

in a voice that’s so ready to leave.

Doors do not slam, but they do not stay open

as I sneak music into the house, as I whisper

my longings to the furniture, my fears

to the ceiling, my hopes to the line of

hallway light that goes off beneath my door.

silent night

stay with me

hold me tight

then set me free

daylight will

blind me still

the child’s dream

not what it seemed

we search for safer passage

we pray our eyes adjust

we cling to all that’s offered

we do what we must

storm outside

thunder warns

deepest fears

since we were born

take me now

show me how

to fight the dark

to find a spark

you are my spark

Who is the
you
? Sometimes when I’m writing

I don’t know. I am singing out to the stranger

of my songs.

On Friday, Caleb won’t take no for an answer.

We are going out to the club he loves, the one

I’ve always managed to avoid. He wants to dance,

and he wants me to dance with him. I can’t

say no. Even though I dread it, even though

it’s not my thing, I will do it for him, because

he has done so much for me. He asks me what

I’m going to wear, and I tell him I was planning

on wearing what I wore to school. He laughs

and tells me to go home and put on something

a little more clubby. For him, this means tighter.

For me, this means darker jeans. When I go home

to change, I don’t pick up my guitar, because

I know if I do, I might never leave it.

It’s under-18 night at the Continental,

which means there’s no drinking,

except for the few hours beforehand.

I carry a small notebook in my back pocket,

although I can’t see the music coming to me

here. It is too loud. A singer-songwriter

nightmare. Speakers blasting the
thump-thunk-thump

of a dance floor mainstay, while the singer belts

the same three lines over and over and over again.

I love this song
! Caleb cries, pulling me into

the flashing lights. He looks hot, and everyone else

seems to be noticing. I am lost. It feels like the music

is being imposed on me. I struggle to sway while

Caleb soars. This is his place. This is the liberation

he’s found. And there is something beautiful about it,

this closed room where boys slide up to boys

and they find a rhythm that defies everything outside.

The music elevates them, takes their cares away

and gives them only one care in return—this movement,

this heat, these lights that turn them into a neon crowd

feverish in their release, comfortable in their bodies

as they leave them in the synthesized rush.

I observe this without feeling a part of it.

Caleb holds me and pulls me into him and I feel

nothing but the ways my body can’t move,

the songs inside that are being drowned out

in this rush. Caleb asks
what’s wrong
and I say

nothing
and keep trying until Caleb senses it again,

says
what’s wrong
and this time I know what’s

implied—that the something that’s wrong

is me. I tell him I need some water, and when I go

he does not follow.

I get some water and stand on the sidelines.

I watch him and don’t recognize him

as the boy I have felt love for. He is joyous

in his movements, holding and groping and swaying

in time with his new partner. And I know it’s not

that he likes this other boy, I know it’s just part of