charlie chaplin
once told his daughter
that her naked body should only
belong to those
who fall in love with
her naked soul.
now,
my soul’s hardly naked.
it wears layers and layers
to keep hurt out,
sometimes to keep love out.
but if you can manage
to strip me down,
my soul bare,
and the rest of me clothed
but ******* shivering
like a little kid who got
caught in a blizzard,
trying to catch snowflakes
to keep under my tongue;
if you manage to pull that
all away
and strip me down
to a mess of
private parts –
the parts i don’t tell people
about,
the parts i sectioned off
and hastily labeled
mineminemine
because i wasn’t ready to
share myself,
and the parts of myself
i deemed too fragile
to withstand
your gaze.
you see,
i don’t dismantle
my walls
for just anybody.
but if you strip me down,
past the things we all use
to hide out,
maybe you could love
my naked soul.
i’ve never been the kind of girl
who liked the idea of
“belonging”
to someone but
there are much worse fates
i could think of
than belonging to
you.