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.