JULY 7, 2008

My 25th birthday was the best birthday I've ever had…

But I'll write about that later.

For now, I've been listening to this song over and over and over since we went out on the 4th at a gay bar called Tavern on Camac that actually wasn't anything like Woody's or Key West and a place I would gladly go again.

And some events that happened that night have, naturally, had me thinking…

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"Boys in the Trees" is a song that is covered by Tori Amos (I saw her perform it in Washington D.C. on April 6, 2005) but has never been officially released by her.

The song is originally by Carly Simon and is track two on her album Boys in the Trees.

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I'm home again in my old narrow bed
where I grow tall and my feet hung over the end
and the low beam room with the window looking out
on the soft summer garden
where the boys grew in the trees



This is sort of how I felt my entire life. I'm home, at 210 McClellan Street, and this is pretty much the only home I've ever known. There was that stint were I moved out for seven months and hated most of it and then I moved home again and found I was suddenly too big for this little room.

I have more important things to do. But when? Maybe always. Maybe never.

Staring out a window is a perfect metaphor for how I have always felt about boys. Looking on with envy, as if stuck behind a pane of glass, wondering how to break out, watching men do boy things, like climb in trees, wrestle, rough house and then contemplate my own existence as a man because I don't enjoy any of those activities. I used to wonder if I went and tried to pretend to like these things if that would make me more like a man. Then one day I stopped caring.

What boys like to sit inside, read and write, and think? I did. I still do.

In the summer I sit inside in the air conditioning and wait until winter comes.

here i grew guilty
and oh what is it for?
frightened by the power of every innocent thought
and the silent understanding passing down
from daughter to daughter
let the boys grow in the trees

What is it for? Am I guilty or merely ashamed? And is it possible to ever get over that shame? Learning how to let go past emotional habits is the most difficult thing a human being can do and, yet, I feel like I am doing a steady, commendable job of it.

I don't know if "guilty" is the right word, but I can relate to the character in the song. A feeling of not-good-enough, inferiority, defeat – these adjectives describe my feelings towards men. And innocent thoughts – like holding hands with a guy, or wanting a guy to care enough about me to care whether or not I care – become hour long emotional tug-of-wars between that side of me that knows I'm worthy of these things and the other part of me that believes everything my Father every told me, and still repeats.

Nobody ever wins, the rope doesn't budge, but the feelings of confusion and want still remain.

When I listen to "Boys on the Trees" I don't hear "from daughter to daughter" I hear "from father to father" because for me it was the understanding that boys aren't queer – boys don't kiss other boys and the ones that do don't talk about it, and still have girlfriends. Yet, despite understanding this, I went against the mold and lived my own life – and suffer with the guilt of not living up to someone's else image of what I should have become.

Isn't that really what everyone's guilt is about anyway?

While I deal with all of this the boys become men in the trees and I feel that, even among the gay ones, there is no space for me in the branches.

do you go to them or do you let them come to you?
do you stand in back afraid that you'll intrude?
deny yourself and hope someone will see
and live like a flower
while the boys grow in the trees

"Do you go to them or do you let them come to you?" – This is, potentially, my favorite line in all of music because it's something I've always wanted somebody to answer for me. It's so simple to some people and, for people like me, there is no real answer to it. As, per example, on Saturday night I went up to him and talked to him, and then the conversation dwindled down – should I have given up? Should I have kept it up? Is rejection better than never knowing? Is never knowing the ultimate excuse?

And what if you do stand by and just watch? Can sitting by the window and never intruding be pleasant only in sense that by not getting involved you can never get hurt? Rejection isn't really an option. Then why I am always hurting? It's a numb, senseless hurt that has been there so long there it seems normal, but I know that it cannot be. I don't accept this as my reality. And the only thing to do is change…

But I am constantly denying myself that option. I fill my life with other things – work, school, friends, entertaining but senseless drama – and putting the gay part of me tucked away. Sure, everybody knows I'm gay, but you would never know it if you looked at my personal life. Where the boys are? Not here.

I'm waiting for some guy to notice how amazing I am – I'm ambitious, energetic, motivated, charming, loving, loyal, funny, – hysterical, if I do say so myself – and, most importantly, lonely.

Hope someone will see – that's an understatement.

All the while, nobody that I want to notice notices and the boys go along in the trees…

last night I slept in sheets the color of fire
tonight I lie alone again and I curse my own desires
sentenced first to burn and then to freeze
and watch by the window
as the boys grow in the trees

Night time I think is when it's hardest because I drift off to slept thinking of what I could be doing if only there was a live human guy next to me and not just Nathan, my devoted and faithful body pillow of many years.

On Saturday, my birthday, I told Philly Danielle if I could turn off my dick brain I gladly would. If I never felt sexually attracted to anybody I'm not so sure I would feel as horribly as I do sometimes. Not having somebody to touch, to kiss, to lean on, to grab…it only makes the wanting for somebody even more extreme.

Not only that, but I'd probably save a lot of money on porn.

I curse my own desires.

Sentenced first to burn and then to freeze – once you quench your own desires, the burning that seems almost unbearable, I'm left in the frostiness of the reality that it's just me, all by myself, in my air conditioned room, and the chill of the potential of never knowing romantic love is terrifying, but, at the same time, a little relieving. If I never have love, I'll never know what it is to lose it.

I'll curl up by my window and watch the boys in the trees…