Winter of My Own Design

I talk about authenticity. But I haven't always been authentic. So frankly, you should not trust me. I haven't earned it yet.

In fact, It took me 56 years to both discover my authentic self and have the courage to rid myself of secrets locked behind layers of shame, fear, and, frankly shitty behavior. One thing to the outside world, another in my secret world. No more. I rid myself of secrets and committed to making no more--but being 100% honest about my needs, wants, and desires. And not committing or promising things I know I will not be able to keep.

As each deeper autumn day passes by

the leaves of this summer of my love

Begin to turn and lemming their way to join the earth

To become dust at my feet

In the coming winter of my own design

No more balmy days with only a hint of chill

And the warmth of diminishing daylight hours

Turns to bitter bitter cold

And my fingers cannot find or hold anything warm

In the coming winter of my own design

During the twenty years I basked in her summer sun

Of pure radiance and love

I would not let the fullness of her heart’s heat into my dry cold heart

And I sought shameful warmth in subterranean places

and found affairs of emotional blankness

saturating my heart with putrid dankness

And this year

I discovered that my heart was neither dry nor cold

Rather it was designed for different gender portions

A misunderstanding of lifetime proportions

Fueled by traumatic childhood apportions

Leading to my eventual moral contortions

Explaining my repeated authenticity abortions

And with my recently opened heart

I realized that the light that has shone brightly up on me

And slept next to me every night

Was bright enough to warm me

and my other recently realized portions

Because she is more powerful and radiant than I knew

And this summer as we wrestled with my newfound epiphanies

I spent this summer in warmth and bliss and the sweetness of her kisses

Yet the weight of my shame tore at me

How could I declare I was living in authenticity

and pour myself into pools of my poetry

With this secret deep still deep inside of me

And so I confessed to my darling sunflower

the secret of my long con game

The last secret I held in my name

As I spoke the words of my shame

I saw my love’s sunlight crack

And shatter into endless crying pieces

And her light diminished

And her trust finished

As my dank heart poured into hers

My manifested imaginary dry cold cracks

Forming in her a permanent eclipse

In what was a perfect light

And the words of her disgust

Pounded me like fists

And I could not get small enough

To keep the pain from being so painfully rough

But I deserved every word of her scorn

And disappointed disgust

And so here I sit

In the growing shadow

Blocking that life giving light from reaching me

And seeing the full radiance of her corona and prominences

I am ashamed

That I wasted so much of her love

And my world turns colder

In the rapidly approaching winter of my own design

And while I have blankets and furs and portable heaters

And will survive this icy season

perhaps basking in another sun one day

It will never be the same

It will never be the same

And I will forever carry the shame

In the dry cold cracks of my heart

A true shame

Of breaking her

Eclipsing her

And causing a winter of my own design

And robbing her

and the world

of her full radiance

And my pain will be watching her radiance

Shone upon another man

And the warmth of her memory

Will be the only thing that remains

As I sit on my iceberg

Floating aimlessly in the winter of my own design