St. Jonathan's Eye

They were on the bed. It was twilight out, but neither wanted to turn the light on.
It was the end of all of that and they both knew it. Nobody wanted to admit it first.
"Joey," she said, staring at the ceiling.
"Mm?" he said.
"Do you remember when we used to go to the cathedral and climb the gargoyles?"
"Of course."
"We could see everything from there."
Joey said nothing.
"We haven't done that in a long time." Maria sighed and turned so that she was facing him. The last pale blue light threw stripes across his face. His eyes were fixed on the plaster above.
Joey said something, but choked halfway through. "What?" said Maria.
"I was just thinking about the gargoyles."
"I wonder why we don't do that anymore."
"They'd catch us. We're too big now."
"That's bull, Joey, we're no bigger than we were then."
"Yes we are. To them we are."
He was silent again.

Maria put her foot in St. Jonathan's eye, testing the stained granite. She grabbed his pointed ear and hoisted herself up onto his head, then reached for the nearby slate roof. Scrambling she managed to get up on the top. She turned and looked out into the world. The sky was hazier than she remembered, because she used to be able to see her house from here. She watched the courtyard below her. People moved to and fro, unaware of a new gargoyle that had perched upon the old cathedral.
She saw Joey down there. Her breath caught ever so slightly, and she crouched lower so that he wouldn't see her. He was talking and laughing with some kids she didn't recognize. She bit her lip between her teeth, drawing air in a hiss as she noticed the swastika emblazoned on one of their arms. Not them, she thought. He can't have sunk so low.
The harsh German voices floated up to her. They were joking about something, but her German wasn't good enough to understand them. Joey had always been so good with languages.
She turned to follow their progress and a shingle fell from the roof, bouncing off the heads of Saints Francis and Simon and landing with a clatter on the cobblestones below. The Germans looked up.
Wer ist das auf dem Dach? Who is that on the roof?
Wie... ist sie ein gargoyle. Eh... she is a gargoyle.
The haze must have been worse than she thought, because the Germans accepted this and moved on. Joey stayed behind and looked at her. They made nervous eye contact. He broke it first, turning his head like he was snapping a cord, and continued on.
She continued to watch him as he caught up to his swastika-emblazoned friends.
The tear felt warm on her cheek, tracing its way down her grey speckled face, leaving a dark trail.
It was comfortable here, she thought. She didn't feel like she needed to move anymore.
And anyway, she said to herself, gargoyles don't cry.

You thought you knew better

FUCK YOU.
I know you're trying to control me. You're trying to make me go back there. I won't do it! I learned! That dream is GONE, ok? Jesus fucking christ. I'm working on it. It's being erased. That hopeless hope, the sort of hope that leaves me alone and empty, is over and gone. I don't want to sink back into this anymore, because I'm not that sort of person anymore, right? I learned from this, right? Please, tell me I was right.

I can't take this anymore. I will not do this again. I wasted my LIFE feeling lost and empty and morose, and then when I got what I wanted I wasn't happy either! I'm deluding myself! Nobody can ever come close to what I want, so why can't I just drop it?

You want me to see that it's wrong. You want me to see that I could be happy if only I was straight. That's not the way it works, you worthless deity. I didn't choose this. I can't fucking change it any more than I could change my skin color to purple. So could you just leave me STOP MAKING ME SMELL HIM DAMMIT.

He's gone! I ended it! So leave me alone, ok? What do you want from me?

what the hell do you want from me?

if I could make it rain today

Thought I might get a rocket ride
When I was a child but it was a lie
That I told myself when I needed something good
At seventeen, had a better dream.
Now I'm thirty-three and it isn't me
But I'd think of something better if I could
All my friends and lovers leave me behind
I'm still looking for a girl
One way or another
I'm just hoping to find a way
To put my feet out in the world

There's a sort of out-of-place feeling I get whenever I try to put my thoughts down on paper. They never come out quite right. I'm painting a picture and I can't get any of the shadows right, so the whole thing is two-dimensional and flat. And then I stand back and look at it and shake my head because I know I've failed yet again to get this raging storm of emotion down on something permanent because it'll just be gone tomorrow.

Caught some grief from a falling leaf
As she tumbled down to the dirty ground
Said I should have put her back there if I could
But everyone needs a better day
And I'm trying to find me a better way
To get from the things I do to the things I should

I guess I'm just looking for something that hasn't turned up yet. Frustration with myself has led me to act irrationally, stupidly, and I've started to make errors. Grievous errors. And I just don't know how many times I can fuck up and get away with it. I'm skirting on the edge of disaster, because I'm beginning to think that's how I'll find how I'm meant to feel. Doesn't that make sense? That I don't know how I should feel? Because nothing feels right anymore.

All you want is a beauty queen
Not a superstar but everybody's dream machine
All you want is a place to lay your head
You go to sleep dreaming how you would
Be a different kind if you thought you could
But you come awake the way you are instead

People have colors. My color is sandstone. I was born in New Mexico, surrounded by the streets of Santa Fe, and yet I'm always so drawn to the rough tan of sandstone, unbroken by green. I guess I'm a desert person. I used to think I was a forest person, but I think I just wanted to be a forest person. I think it was the same sort of lie that led me to believe I was straight. You know, I never thought I'd be ok with being gay. Isn't that strange? I thought it would haunt me my whole life. Maybe it will, or is. It's certainly shaping a lot of my experiences recently. And I always envisioned myself sitting out in a desert under some gnarled oak writing a story about two people.

All my friends and lovers shine like the sun
I just turn and walk away
One way or another
I'm not coming undone
I'm just waiting for the day

I want to write something that will bring itself to life. I want to write something so powerful people will cry when they read it because it will strike that pang of something that we all hold common to ourselves, something so base every human could read it and identify it simply because they are human and they feel. And maybe I never will, but I don't know. Don't we all need dreams? This is my dream. I want to change peoples' lives. I want to make myself into somebody that can do that. I want to bring these dreams to life.