The End


Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide
Voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time
The night is my companion and solitude my guide
Would I spend forever here and not be satisfied

It’s dark out. It’s dark, but the sunset was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Charity ended it the week before tour ended. I’m glad. It’s easier to have it be something she suggested. An amicable part. I can honestly say that she’s the only one to ever leave me who didn’t hurt me.

I guess that’s not true. There’s still a part of me that wonders why I’m never enough for them. Even her.

I sit here, in my yard. The dew settles around me. I don’t mind. The night comes alive around me. No matter where I go, I can’t escape the darkness as it closes around me. It’s time to stop running.

Nick left me at night. We only saw each other at night. Held in shadows, clasped in moonlight, clothed in cobwebs. I loved him. I was sixteen. I was his first lover, he said. Not his first partner, but his first lover. He was my whole world. My only joy. Working eighteen hours a day, traveling four and seeing Nick for ten minutes. Nick touched me softly, knowing where it would hurt because he hurt in the same places. I thought relationships were built on similarities. I thought so.

Tears seem to burn at me, but distantly. The sense memory of the night Nick came and told me it would never work. They, the Boys, were going back to the states. And Nick was sorry as could be, but-- But I wasn’t it for him. I remember sounds like this then. Like rain, but softer. Like dew, but bitter. Night insects filling the silence as we talked... and then going silent and deafening me as Nick walked away through the park.


And I would be the one to hold you down, kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
And after I'd wipe away the tears, just close your eyes dear


It was Joey who found me crying in the bathroom that night. And it was Joey who told me he’d known all along where I was going. Three weeks later, it was Joey who kissed me and looked terrified doing it. I remember kissing him back and being so surprised that it felt good to kiss someone who wasn’t Nick.

We spent a month of nights sharing a bed. Ostensibly for warmth, really because we’d whisper to each other until sleep dragged us down. By then, Joey knew how I liked my toast, what I thought about raising children, where I really thought that Nsync would end up. That I adored him. That I wanted him. And I knew that he wanted me.

The candles sputter and die around me, soft wet-dry sounds. Heat breathes through the air. Orlando is always hot. But this is the tiny wafts of flame licking toward me, raising the hair on my arms. I feel tight, the almost burned feeling of being too near. But I’m greedy for heat now. And the sound reminds me.

Joey’d set out seventeen candles at the foot of our bed. There’d been twenty at the top, because Joey’d just turned twenty. I was his birthday present. We were spooned together. I’d never felt so intimate with Nick as I did with Joey spooned behind me and easing in, our fingers laced together. Drifting and knowing that we could sleep whenever we chose. Neither of us had to race back to a room and hide. Joey cried when he came, and I held him close and felt so grown up.

When we came back to the states, Kelly was waiting. Joey left so slowly, I almost didn’t see him go. I wasn’t looking, didn’t want to see. But Kelly could give my Joe what he wanted. A family, a future. No hiding. He stayed my best friend. It’s just that he took such a big part of me with him. I had no choice but to love him, even once he stopped loving me like that.


Through this world I've stumbled so many times betrayed
Trying to find an honest word to find the truth enslaved
Oh you speak to me in riddles and you speak to me in rhyme
My body aches to breathe your breath
Your words keep me alive


Something splashes into my pool. Leaves falling on water. Or snow falling on a rooftop, which is where I fell in love with Justin. Two years after coming back home. We’d been sleeping together for four weeks and two days. And recording the Christmas album just-- lifted me so high and Justin too. We both remembered what Christmas was, being good Southern boys.

Joy of the season or whatever, I loved Justin. His eyes softened when I said it out loud. The way he kissed me, I’ll never forget. I took Justin home for Christmas Eve. He took me home for Christmas day. Lynn hugged me and said she’s always wanted more kids. My Momma fed Justin about five courses, convinced he was too skinny. We slept in the same bed in both houses. Exactly twelve weeks later, Justin announced that he needed to move on. He wasn’t ready to commit to forever, he needed to be free to learn himself. I didn’t cry. Chris didn’t talk to him for a week.


And I would be the one to hold you down, kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
And after I'd wipe away the tears, just close your eyes dear


I never saw Chris coming. Not that that’s unusual, no one ever does. He just appeared in my bed. Chris said he was lonely and horny and I was pretty and not involved. We called it fooling around. Even after we started actually sleeping in the same bed and showering together and cooking each other dinner. Which meant ordering in when it was Chris’s turn to cook.

We didn’t go to holidays together. Chris never asked and I never suggested. I never said love. I thought there might be something to last forever there. After all, Chris had no long-term exes. He didn’t need to go “find” himself, since he’d been out as bisexual since I was sixteen. He didn’t have to leave the country.

But one night he just wasn’t there. We’d just recorded I Drive Myself Crazy. Dani was tall and blonde and the sweetest woman on earth. Chris was really fucking happy with her, and I never blamed him for leaving. I didn’t show him how much I needed him, he didn’t know. And Dani was so good for him. I liked her a lot. Right until she broke his heart. Now I’d like to shake her and make her see what a good man Chris is. But, well, that’s not important any more. He has Joey now.

The candles are all out now. Darkness. I lay back, let the grass catch me. Cold seeps in, but I know I’ll be hot soon enough. Deep breaths. The night is wet like breath. It slides into my lungs like shotgunning off a friend. I’m being slipped something, but it’s not hope. The earth will welcome me back to it’s embrace. And it will never send me away. I have to settle for that. Heaven won’t have me soon.


Into this night I wander, it's morning that I dread
Another day of knowing of the path I fear to tread
Oh into the sea of waking dreams I follow without pride
Nothing stands between us here and I won't be denied


JC liked to shotgun pot. It made him giggly and pliant and sweet against my chest. JC was my last. Six weeks, and he was so close to me. He was always right there. Six weeks felt like six years and the sex wasn’t important to the core of the relationship. We could have never been to bed together, and it would have been exactly the same, I know. That’s why it was so hard.

Tony came to open with us halfway through the tour. And I knew JC loved him. Had loved him since MMC. Tony is JC’s great what-if. I know that he would never have cheated on me, ever. Not even an emotional affair. But. But I can see the way his eyes follow Tony. I can see the hope that never died. And I saw something else. I saw Tony watching him back. They’ve been together for a year. JC’s the only lover I’ve ever broken up with. I couldn’t do that to him, take away his chance.

And I couldn’t stand to wait until he broke my heart.


And I would be the one to hold you down, kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
And after I'd wipe away the tears, just close your eyes


A shrill whistle penetrates the silence of the night. I stand and walk inside. Tea before bed. I’ve already put a double amount in the tea strainer. Paraguay tea-- an herbal tea derived from the plant Ilex paraguariensis.

Also known as belladonna.

Bitterness slides across my tongue, taints my throat. I drink slowly, savoring the warmth that burns out the nothingness my life has become. Outside, darkness falls fully. The lights are few in this great mass of backyard. I wash my mug and put it away. No sense in leaving a mess now. Not when I’ve gone to so much effort not to leave a burden for anyone.

I walk up to my room, lay on the big, perfect bed. I fleetingly wish Dirk were here, something to hold. I’m scared now, but only a little. I’ll miss my Momma. But only a little.

I regret.

But only a little.

The clock ticks away into the silence, eating at my moments. Curl, slowly, onto my side.

The room looks so bright. The moon is only half full. Why does it look so bright? So blurred. I’m not crying, I check to be sure, but my fingers come away dry.

I can feel my body heat, my heart race. I haven’t felt like this since Russia. Before -- I haven’t felt like this since before heart surgery. The sensation is remarkably familiar.

When my heart skips for the first time, I let myself cry. Where am I? Why isn’t... he... who?

How did I get here?

Why can’t I leave?

I can’t leave.

I have hope.

Hope for what?

I have hope.

Hope for... something.

My eyes grow heavy, but I must keep them open, stay yet a while.

I have hope.



But only a little.



My eyes close. My hope dies.

It hurts.

But only...only a little...