{I can live life unfiltered.

I preen and uncover the riotous feathers
I always felt I had to tuck away.

When I cause those laughs,
or at the very least, those grins,
it seems suddenly, I have swallowed
something much like the sun—
all of the lit space in its seams,
and I become bright,
unchallenged, and with purpose.

I live life proudly and profoundly undressed.

To feel comfortable in my own skin
will never be this natural in any other context.

I am rarely a creature of grace, but
when I feel those fingers
run down the length of my bare back,
I become a word so treacherously beautiful,
writers are too hesitant to pen it.

Wrapped up in those arms,
I find that I fit; I’m home; I’m safe.

I get an unmatched pleasure out of
watching such a mind work—
in awe of how it knows when things fit together,
the way it peels, layers, creates, and stimulates.

No, seriously though, the mind thing?
[Nothing turns me on more.]

The same fears are shared—
of living a cliché and settling,
of pain and disfigurement,
but mostly of
endings.

I find contentment
in simply being held in the
silent repose of the morning
before my small world is awake,
and the street lamps are still
competing with the dawn.

It’s occurred to me that this has
made me into something marvelous
I didn’t know existed. }

Just know,
why I keep you around can’t be explained
johnny-on-the-spot.
See, when asked,
my little heart crescendos, and all of the words
rush to tangle on the back of my tongue.
I pull the phrases out, word by word,
and string them the way
they were meant to be read.

Don't be discouraged
by an answer of “I don’t know.”
It sometimes buys
the necessary time
for one to display the whole truth—
one that that lovely, whiskey-soaked head
can’t fully comprehend in that moment.

But maybe,
I keep you around
simply
*because.