Soft Gaze

So here we are, at the tail end of Scorpio season, right on the tip of the stinger. Things have been intense. Scorpio brings us the season of the Shadow: obsession, betrayal, the secrets that come to light from up out of the darkness, and the courage inside us to look. And what a juicy global secret we’ve been revealed! Trump… sucked off… BILL CLINTON? And Putin has the photos to prove it? Now there’s some tea we can sip slowly. The overlords are slipping.

The name Braden means “a broad valley” in Old English [if you squint you might remember a time when some of us we were of Avalon — that lush green isle we lost to the idea of kings.] Down here, in the broad valley, this fertile field of co-creation that we share, you are free to be the furred & mythological creature that you are and to frolic as you will on the earth according to your shape and the landscapes that you love you might like what you feel against your skin when you shapeshift...

Your brow, it is mine to beat Can you feel my love? Can you feel the sun like honey?

I met gentle Ben when I was 19, he was 19, and we found ourselves in my new friend’s bedroom, where we had gathered, four or five of us Abercrombie twinks, to drink rum & cokes and vodka ginger ales. The plan was to garner enough of a buzz to make us feel courageous for the big gay house party we were going to that night.

When we stand like this, on the threshold of a new cycle, winter in its death throes and spring still just a promise, there’s always this question in the air: who do I want to be this year? Aries season asks us to fill in the blank: I am ___________. The answer matters, because action follows identity, and now is the time for bold and decisive action. The world as we knew it has ended or is ending, depending on who you ask.

Who listens to advice, really? Not me, certainly, which is one reason why I’ve made so many mistakes in my sex life. But the other reason is because nobody told me these things! When I was young, there was nowhere to turn, no place where I could read real talk about gay sex. And that is a major reason for the existence of Soft Gaze. So, here is my real talk — everything I wish I had known about gay sex before finding out the hard way.

Meet him at the gates See him standing on the other side of the road not sure where to go Let him in. [Me, inside myself, excited:] He doesn’t know how to dress [The divine lover:] And this is perfect. You have something to show him Now open up your warmth and let it shine to put him at ease Something about the way he hides behind a ball cap and thick glasses and plaid reminds me of men in northwest Ontario At first glance, I’m turned on.

Upgrade to paid to play voiceover A widower for one year. Eyes he opens wide to me and lets me see the blue. Not quite the full circle, but most of it. So much pure colour gentle sadness pouring out in a stream 46 years we were together, he tells me on the grass, in a soft voice, talking about the man he lost the sturdy care stretching back and forth like suede across those decades he was my life’s companion and now?

Upgrade to paid to play voiceover Are you, too, looking for the culprit?