The first time
I took my clothes off in front of you,
I didn’t take everything off.
The first time
I pressed my bare skin against yours,
There was still something between us:
A final barrier between my secrets
And your knowing them.
People say the act of love is the most intimate,
But it isn’t.
The truth is,
The most intimate of acts is stripping yourself
Not of clothes,
But of everything hidden,
Even from yourself.
This act of trust,
Of divulging the deepest, darkest parts of yourself
You often refuse to acknowledge –
This is laying yourself bare.
And often we ask for nothing more
Than to see someone’s clothes on the floor
Because, frankly,
True nakedness is something too personal to ask for.

It happens most often at night,
When the dark surrounds me and the silence is overwhelming and all I can think
are those thoughts.
Those thoughts that haunt me,
Though I don’t know it until they creep up on me,
Like a sudden shadow, where once there was light.
Those thoughts, those words,
Those ******* poison words that beat against my chest like the wings
of trapped birds.
They suffocate me, become me, immerse me
Until they have no choice but to come out
And I say:
Would you fight to keep me?
Do you love me?
Am I the one for you?
What do you want from me?
Finally.
There they are.
I can’t take them back –
Do I want to take them back?
Now other thoughts consume me,
Ones of regret,
Shame,
Repentance.
I turn my head to look at you,
To see how you have taken what has spilled out of me…
And I see you are asleep.
I don’t know what to feel.
I feel too many things at once.
I wonder if my doubts creep into your sleeping self,
Saturate you,
Consume you, as they do me.
I know they will be back for more.

I wish that I could say to you
The words that run through my mind every time I see you,
Speak to you,
Think of you.
They are right there, waiting to be transformed from idea to existence,
But they never quite get there.
It’s funny that, given everything else I’ve laid bare,
I can’t let myself say the words that put my heart in jeopardy.
Because if I say them,
And you don’t say them back…
These words that I leave on the tip of my tongue
Are my perch on the edge of a cliff:
If I gather enough courage to say them,
It also means that I must fall.
Are you ready to fall with me?