Seems like years since I've seen you, but you left just yesterday. There's so much more I wish I'd told you while you were here....I let that moment slip away. Endless questions left unanswered, the test of time we have withstood. Ageless friends bonded together sharing spirit's if we could.
But you're afraid you're gonna love me. A life of pain left you alone. We hide the need, build different dreams, and once again we find the moment is gone.
We have no more than just this minute. The past is gone...the future waits. We play the game of "if we had only, where would we be". What's wrong with now? Why cant you stay?
'Cause you're afraid you're gonna love me. A life of pain left you alone. You hide the need, build separate dreams. And once again we find the moment is gone.
The moment is gone.
I wrote this song 10 years ago almost to the day. I had a friend named Billy that I had known since I was 14. I had left home in search of God, honesty, and truth running face-first into a realm of depravity, debauchery, and death. Billy and I met on an elevator when I was trying to hide from a party taking place in the apartment I shared. I wanted nothing to do with the drugs, the lust, or the decapitated camps of human greed. Neither did he. We sat on a roof top waiting for the stars to come out....wishing away clouds reflecting cities that never sleep. I loved Billy. He was laced with thorns in leather, but held his armor open to me so many times for a place to hide and dream. He said I could have saved him from a course that relentlessly beats water through stone. I said he wouldnt let me. He said I should be held up as a Queen among Angels, and never be touched by man. I said my children were the gifts they left me. He said he finally understood what love is as I held his hand. And he lay dying while I was crying. His mother was ashamed that he was Gay. I was honored to be counted worthy as a friend when so many had taken more than Billy could spare, and he became hardened to the very truth, and hope, and God we had looked for. Even on his death-bed he smiled and told me not to cut my hair. I kissed his forehead as I left, knowing I would have to look for trees waving, and feel an ache no one else could replace. My Billy....my gentle friend, my horse riding companion that raced me for the wind. My drunken bar buddy that set his pants on fire by ashing a cigarette down the cuff of bell-bottomed jeans. My balloons on Valentines Day. My roses on Mother's Day. My children's delight at a ride on Sir Galahad, and their fear of slobbering Chucky (the mammoth moose of a black lab). My secret love of 20 years, though always un-named, told only to Billy when the snow boarded us into a cabin by Grand Marais. My retreat from a last chance at Autumn splendor overlooking the shores of Lake Superior because nausea wouldn't let us drive any farther. My bare-bottomed patient that tried to steal my car while dressed only in an open backed hospital gown, and running from the AIDS that had swallowed his brain. My refusal to participate in a glittery parade of skin, dancing for attention when his ashes were laid on the alter. I couldn’t go to the funeral. I planted him a tree instead, and I drove past it this afternoon.
I miss you, Billy. I just wanted you to know that today. Your birthday is only one month away, and i wonder if maybe you are already back here or waiting to be born. I think it would be an awful shame if God kept you all to Himself. So many people would never get to know how love heals, how close the stars really are, or how hope has stronger shoulders than Sir Galahad.