Aurora Magazine 2017

The singer for Jesus and His Judgmental Father came to sit at a lake next to me, and asked to share an American Spirit. I had never heard of their band before that day. They asked my pronouns, nobody had done that before. They loved my smile and they loved my clothes. I loved their songs and being there; comfortable outside under the pines in this hidden place. I told them that not all of Indiana was like this. I told them how much I wished that it could be. I let them know I didn’t want to go back to anywhere that wasn’t this place. They said, “Macy, you’ll make it back to a place like this someday. If you can’t then know we all will miss you. Save a seat right here. At a pond in the middle of Indy-fucking- ana. If there’s an oasis here, there could be one anywhere.” This was a promise I held onto when I saw Pat take the stage, he was tired. He was leaving us, leaving the scene that I needed now more than ever. But nobody could hate him when he’d given years and years of himself to the movement. We could only hope he knew how loved he was while he sang that last song. He didn’t look at me, he closed his eyes while the we shouted the ideas he had given us right back to him. The lyrics were for all of us, and though it was just a dream, I could hold onto the idea they were for me. And he said “Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist. Keep on loving, keep on fighting. Hold on for your life.” We lit a fire on the houses holding us back in our hearts. We had to leave behind to get here. We were louder than the slurs that held us back could ever be. No more fags, no more weirdos, no more dykes. We were just people there, just punks. We weren’t going to be held back by anything at PIX. At that last show it was like our hometowns never even existed.

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