How They Met, and Other Stories
How They Met, and Other Stories(44)
Author: David Levithan
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
the dance, but suddenly I am seeing all the things
I will never be able to give him. I am seeing
that I cannot be a part of the music that sets him
free. And it’s seeing it in those terms that does it,
that makes me fill with loneliness. I will stand here
for the rest of the night, and he will dance there.
He has listened to me for hour upon hour, and so
I have dressed the part, I have made the appearance,
I have tried the groove. But in the end he will say
I closed my ears to him, and he will not be wrong.
I take out my notebook, take out my pen,
but the lines remain empty. I cannot think,
I am thinking so much.
For the first time ever, we drive home in silence.
He is sweaty, ragged, angry, beautiful.