Surviving Seasons

I choose to fall on my own time

I begin believing that nothing needs me

Not the Winter as He delivers the first cool snowflake
of a soon to be covered canvas of white and frost

Not the Spring as She embraces the breeze from the Atlantic waters

Not the Summer as time sends the sun to my doorstep
chasing the shade into an already delirious
landscape of shorts, sandals and tank tops

I collapse effortlessly as Autumn shakes the leaves
to do what I fear of doing too easily

I am used to fighting against the fall
Developing compelling reasons of why I came here
Defining journeys
Separating a park bench and isolation
with Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas parties

I am used to surviving seasons

But tonight I take a different approach

I surrender to the failures that will no doubt outlive my desire
to prove all my private critics wrong this time

I welcome the challenge to outlast my need to win
with my instincts to let the cards deal what was meant for me

And I’ve never been one to gamble with life as barter without a backhanded guarantee
The stakes are too great and there are far too many roads that call for me
to fight for the path that will certainly call for more uncertainty

So tonight my approach resembles freedom

Freedom to fall if I must

To paint the sand blue before the waves come

Freedom to watch how quickly things can spin out of control deliberately falling apart

Freedom to face the days believing that everything…all the pieces are there like a jigsaw puzzle waiting for you to rebuild them again

We need to believe that sometimes…everything that needs you will find you

Whole or broken

Starved and unsatisfied or replenished and confident

Celebrating that this gift of days and seasons perfect in its imperfection and uneven ends

This gift of moments making me crazy

with more love and loss, more pain than I can handle in one breath

This gift of hopeless freedom needs me to exist

more than my willingness to freefall blindly past it