{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
Heartbeat.
Thunder.
Lightning.
Rain.
Absence.
Silence.
We existed in a land of letters. Furtive messages left for one another on a shared computer, before there was e-mail or social media of any kind. Lyrics mostly, the occasional letter, snippets of songs and poems and phrases we’d heard whispered in a dream. That’s what we were in – the fever dream of being eighteen years old and just beginning to find yourself. Seeing glimmers of who you might want to be in another person was intoxicating.
From the not-so-hallowed halls of high school unimaginativeness, we found each other like weak beacons in a tormented sea. Our lights having been wasted for years amid kids and adults who were always somehow lacking or limited, we found kindred spirits in each other, and when you find a twin flame at such a lovely and atrocious time in your life, it ignites something that can never be fully extinguished.
With you I’m not a little girlWith you I’m not a manWhen all the hurt inside of meComes out, you understandYou see that I’m ferociousYou see that I am weakYou see that I am sillyAnd pretentious and a freak
She had come from another school, and back in those days I disdained anyone new. She was also outspoken, unafraid to be the center of attention, and brash in a way that intimidated others; for those reasons, and more, she eventually gained my respect. She also had similar taste in music. Embroiled in the typical maelstrom of adolescent angst and drama, we each found comfort and thrills in Madonna, for no one spoke to that more succinctly than her. It was a rare treat to find someone as enamored of the pop star at that time – there was something decidedly uncool for a boy to like her, if not outright offensive. I was just starting to learn not to care about such things. When messages started appearing on the computer I used in an early computer class, I knew instantly who they were from, and in that dreamy period of teenage infatuation and insecurity, I wrote back with similar messages and strings of words. We each needed a friend then.
But I don’t feel too strange for youDon’t know exactly what you doI think when love is pure you tryTo understand the reasons whyAnd I prefer this mysteryIt cancels out my miseryAnd gives me hope that there could beA person that loves me
At the time, I was seeing another girl, so my side of things had to remain – and did remain – strictly platonic. Admittedly there were some flirtatious moments, but when you’re eighteen that seems the least of any transgressions, and I never cheated on my girlfriend despite the opportunity. Still, I understood that meeting someone who understood me in a wholly different way was something special, something sacred, and we guarded that. In some way we sensed that we might be each other’s salvation at a point down the road, and in so many aspects we both needed to be rescued.
Rescue me (rescue me, it’s hard to believe)Your love has given me hopeRescue me (rescue me, it’s hard to believe) I’m drowningBaby throw out your rope
We were both confidently assured of our fabulousness and keenly insecure about who we were. It may likely have been no more than youth, but you usually can’t see that at the time it all happens. We spoke to one another in a language no one else would ever understand – at times I wondered if we even knew what we were saying, so complicated did our verbal sparring turn that we would occasionally get lost in woods of words. Being so perfectly matched in wit was as much a blessing as a curse; it made for the greatest moments of connection while proving fertile fighting ground. Our battles were as epic as our chemistry, and when my then-girlfriend and I broke up (in the best way we could manage, which admittedly wasn’t the best), we finally had the chance to see how we would or could work as a couple.
With you I’m not a fascistCan’t play you like a toyAnd when I need to dominateYou’re not my little boyYou see that I am hungryFor a life of understandingAnd you forgive my angry little heartWhen she’s demanding
We shared a chemistry that transcended typical gender and sexual roles (especially seeing as how we would both end up realizing we were more attracted to the same sex in a year or so). At the moment, we came together in combustible and fiery fashion – an attraction built first on the intellectual, followed by the physical, which at our age meant burning up.
You bring me to my kneesWhile I’m scratching out the eyesOf a world I want to conquerAnd deliver and despiseAnd right while I am standing thereI suddenly begin to careAnd understand that there could beA person that loves me
We would explore every configuration of how our bodies fit together, fucking everywhere from empty playgrounds to station wagons to the middle of a road somewhere after midnight. With the intensity and fervor befitting the verge of adulthood, our lovemaking was primal, animalistic; it was like we were trying to fuck our way through each other to some other place. She pulled me into her, locking her wrists behind my back as I wondered how close we could come to abandoning ourselves to oblivion. Our passion wanted as much to destroy itself as to build itself anew each day. We were both insatiable then.
Rescue me (rescue me, it’s hard to believe)Your love has given me hopeRescue me (rescue me, it’s hard to believe) I’m drowningBaby throw out your rope
Yet somehow I remained removed, like I was going through the motions of what a man’s supposed to do. There was a cool detachment that I thought was emanating from her, when really it was me the whole time; we so often attribute our questionable traits to others, tricking ourselves into believing we are but mirroring the state of someone else. My barriers were constantly erect, even as I was inside her, as close as two people might possibly be, and as much as we both thought it to be love, the clouds signaling the end of a season, like the clouds of our ending youth, rolled in from the horizon. Our one summer together had come to a close, and by the time I was back in Boston she had moved on to her first girlfriend, and I was kissing a man.
Love is understandingIt’s hard to believeLife can be so demandingI’m sending out an S.O.S.Stop me from drowningBaby I’ll do the rest
Rescue me (rescue me)Your love has given me hope (your love has given me hope)Rescue me (rescue me) I’m drowningBaby throw out your rope
Even if we hadn’t awakened to our diverging sexualities, we could never have survived in a world of reality. Our drama was too intense, our ways with each other too extreme. We couldn’t inhabit the real world – and we both understood that surviving meant living 95% in the real world – navigating its awfulness, getting down in its ditches, dirtying the very pure realm in which we carved our love. Our final break was a messy, splintered, half-assed affair – and we had hurt each other beyond a point where we might be friends.
Love is understandingIt’s hard to believeLife can be so demandingI’m sending out an S.O.S.Rescue me, rescue me
It’s not my business to decideHow good you are for meHow valuable you areAnd what the world can seeOnly that you try to understand meAnd have the courageTo love me for me
Looking back, with the keen sensitivity and wisdom of time unrushed, and with a willingness to acknowledge and own any bad behavior, we may have rescued each other after all. For that brief, glorious, tender time in our lives – a time that would inform all we would ever become, solidifying our souls in ways that remain true to this day, we did our best to save ourselves, and each other. Every once in a while I’ll still think of her, wonder at where she might be, how she might be, what she might be doing – and I hope she is safe and happy. After all of it, I still wish her happiness.
I’m talking, I’m talking, I believe in the power of love
I believe in the power, I believe you can rescue me
Song #177 – ‘Rescue Me’ ~ Early 1990’s
