Naked.

You asked me, how do I like you?
How do I like you.
I said I liked you as you, because I'd be pretty disappointed if you were someone else
And
That was the truth
But
How do I like you?
I like you naked.
You're going to laugh,
And say
I like you naked, too.
But that's not what I mean.
I like you naked
Stripped of all your physicality.
I like lying there, next to you,
And losing myself in you.
Your essence, your very nature,
Your being.
We talk a lot about souls,
You and I.
I like your soul.
I like seeing it in your face,
Hearing it in your voice.
Feeling it
When you touch me.
I like you naked.
I like hearing what's on your mind,
And I like knowing you trust me enough to let me in.
I like you mean, and nasty and rough around the edges,
And I like you strong yet gentle,
I like how you make me feel safe.
I like you naked.
I like meddling around in your mind,
Watching what makes you tick
And what doesn't.
I like you naked.
I like not just hearing,
But feeling and touching and tasting and smelling
You.
I like you
Unconditionally.
I like the game of devil's advocate we play,
I like you naked.
I like waking up next to you,
And falling into sleep to your breathing.
I like being with you, around you, beside you and on your mind.
I like you naked.
I like you like school children like recess.
It's usually what they'd say their favorite subject is.
You're my favorite subject.
You're my muse.
My heart,
My soul.
and quite possibly,
My forever.
I like you for everything you are, everything you have been, and everything you may or may not become.
Mostly,
Though,
I like you naked.

Shelter.

"I never said it was a dealbreaker!"
As we drove home on the I-10,
I practically screamed the sentence at you,
The way my soul was screaming at you.
I couldn't muster many words.
I was trying to hold myself together
Even if
My eyes were leaking mascara  kissed tears
And my brain was reeling as if it had been slapped.
I was
Twisting on the inside,
A proverbial
Apocalypse of emotion.
One.
Boy meets girl.
Two.
Girl falls in love with boy.
Three.
Boy breaks girl's heart.
No!
history has a tendency of repeating itself
NO!
i must be having a nightmare.
NO!
pleasewakemeuppleasewakemeuppleasewakemeup...
NO!
I am the strong one.
I am the glue that sticks people back together,
I am the rock in the dam that keeps it from exploding...
Exploding.
My heart is exploding.
My body is tearing apart from the shrapnel
This is Hell.
This is War.
I'm shell shocked.
My heart is coming home
From the front lines
In a pine box,
I'm fleeing back into a foxhole
Where they say
No one is an atheist
So I'm praying
I am on my knees while gunfire grenades and mines are exploding,
I'm praying
To whatever deity is listening
"Please, please if you're listening, if there's anyone out there listening, forgive me for what I am about to do."
I knelt there in the dirt,
For what felt like forever after you left,
My ears were ringing with
I love yous,
And
The sound of the truck door slamming.
I let the tears drip off the tip of my nose,
And onto a small flower
and I realized,
In that moment,
That when we met a seed was planted.
And we nurtured it,
Protected it,
And grew
Us.
And I was not about to watch that blossom wilt and die.
I promised you,
That I would walk the road that led to your heart.
I never break a promise.
I stood,
The storm calmed,
And I carefully stepped out of my foxhole,
And into the minefield.

Forgiveness

This is not a love poem.
I found you years ago,
Though it seems sometimes like yesterday.
I was instantaneously drawn to you,
Like a flies to rotting fruit.
You were broken and I knew I could fix you.
I could duct tape your broken wings and help you fly
Straight into the sun.
But you were no Icarus,
And my last name never has been Wright.
You were Henry Miller
And I could have been
Aniäs Nin.
But I was bound hand and foot to another.
That never stopped us.
We drank cheap beer together,
And reminisced about the old days when we were young
Before we knew the other existed.
It didn't matter that night,
We were too drunk
Or too high
To notice.
We played poker with body language.
You'd bet with a look
And I raised you a touch,
And before we knew it, we were going to your room.
But this isn't a love poem.
"Jess, I know I don't have much and you have a son, but I have a plan,"
Shut up and kiss me.
I wasn't interested in plans or what you had,
I was selfish.
I was bored with what I had and you, You were shiny and new and beautiful.
You made love to me three times that night,
I fucked you three times that night.
It was a full moon,
And I was hungrier than a starved wolf.
You held me all through the night.
You brought me coffee and cigarettes in the morning,
I thought you were just being a gentleman,
You actually were taking care of me.
I was a master manipulator,
A master of secrets,
A master of the dark.
And you were trying to feel something, anything, but the hole left in your heart.
This is not a love poem.
My life as I knew it,
The life I had carefully put together,
The life I shared with him,
Crumbled two days later.
For as Much as I have tried,
I have never been a good liar.
You were there,
But I shunned you almost as if it was your fault.
This is not a love poem.
It took me two years after our night together,
To finally figure it all out.
You've found someone new now,
So have I.
And we have talked since,
And I apologized,
But I don't think you ever heard me.
You told me not to worry about it,
You told me that you were thankful.
You told me you were fine,
I believed you,
Because you were all of those things.
I figured it all out, two years later.
I self sabotage.
I think I don't deserve things,
Good things,
Good people,
Goodness.
I had all of those things,
And I took all of those things away from myself.
You were an innocent bystander,
Not a catalyst.
You are good and right and selfless.
I see it in you every time we bump into each other.
You were never wrong for what we did.
I took you away from me, too, that weekend.
I lost out on you,
And not in the romantic way.
I damaged things,
Burnt bridges,
Broke bonds.
I see that now.
And for the record, I learned my lesson and forgave myself
For the record,
I am sorry.
This is not a love poem.
This is an apology.

Omission

Today, I thought about you.
I thought about the way the dim light on your dresser illuminates the planes of your face.
How hauntingly beautiful that is.
I wondered if you knew how I see you.
I watch you often.
I memorize the slightest details of your face.
I can see it when you hold back a smile,
or when you're being seductive,
I can see the ghosts that lie behind your eyes.
You asked me the other night
what my favorite part of your body was.
I could have easily said that I loved your cock,
watched your ego inflate,
but I didn't.
I said that I loved the space in between your shoulder blades, especially when you lay on your stomach.
I could tell that you were suprised.
That space, though,
that little flat crevice,
I love it.
When you lay on your side,
with your back to me,
I can nestle my face in there
and breathe you in.
The light on your dresser
casts a perfect shadow
so sometimes it looks like
a valley
and I like to trace my fingers up and down the hills of your shoulders.
Your shoulders attach to your arms.
And your arms,
they tell stories about you.
Those arms pin me down in
fits of passion,
they throw me up against walls,
across your bed,
and against counters.
Your arms keep me safe.
They hold me up when I can no longer stand,
they wrap around me when I need to be close,
they bring me back to earth
after you've thrusted me into oblivion.
I love your arms.
Your hands come next.
Your hands are fucking beautiful.
They create beautiful things, treasures, art.
Your hands invoke orgasms, cries of ecstasy, and pleasurable pain.
Your hands hold mine,
They tangle in my hair,
And they trace up and down my spine.
I love your hands.
I love your chest.
I feel safe up against it,
Whether I'm being crushed or held,
It supports me.
I press my ear against it often,
Just to be close to your heart.
I love your chest.
I love your legs.
Your legs carry you to me.
Your legs dance with me.
I think about how beautiful they are,
Well muscled, almost statuesque.
Your legs are made of steel and silk
I love your legs.
And your face...
Your face...
Your eyes are icicles and snow and sky and ocean.
I stare into them and see the infinate,
And I see cold fires.
Your lips are soft and perfectly shaped to fit mine,
And when you kiss me,
I feel every part of your soul behind it.
Your mouth tells me secrets, stories, truths, and promises.
You build bridges,
Tempt storms
And break me with your mouth.
Your nose is handsome.
It provides the perfect perch for your glasses,
A landing spot for my staccato kisses,
And finds its way to the soft spot on my neck, where shoulder meets clavicle.
I love your face.
So when you asked me what part of your body I favoured,
I made an omission of truth.
I favour all of your parts,
From your head to your feet.

The Road

I never asked for your vindication when I confessed that I loved you.
I knew the second those words left my fingers that there was no way your heart was ready.
I never asked for your permission to love you.
I am not your property. I am not your submissive, nor your slave.
I never asked for your heart in return.
I know that I am always the first to fall feet first.
The road that leads to your heart
may be treacherous,
full of beggars, murderers, kleptomaniacs, and con-artists,
possibly death, destruction and chaos.
I am but an unarmed, unprotected woman-child,
susceptible to all of these things,
and more.
I may walk through fires,
cut my feet on broken glass,
blister my hands from climbing,
starve,
thirst,
and collapse,
but I promise you,
I will not give up.
I have been broken, bruised, battered, bitten,
I have died,
and been ressurrected.
I have braved the coldest of winters,
sweated through the hottest of summers,
prayed through the barest of autumns,
and plowed through the fields of spring.
I am an unprotected, unarmed woman-child.
And though I may suffer,
I may hurt,
I may crumble,
I will crawl toward your heart
on cracked knees
and busted hands
to prove
my love,
and to earn yours.
I never asked you for vindication,
I never asked you for permission.
I never asked you for love.
I expected to earn it.
The best rewards we receive in this life,
are those we have honorably earned.

Black and Blue.

I adore the words
Willing Victim.
At age eighteen I was the victim.
Caught in a violent relationship, I never asked to be
Victimized.
The screams,
The bruises,
The broken bones were not consentual.
The hospital visits,
The lies,
the black eyes
And the tears
Were physical testaments to my
Everyday struggle.
I was broken
In every sense of the word.
I was the victim.
I survived.
I grew stronger,
More defiant,
More aware.
I began to blur the line
Between victim
And willing victim.
I took control of myself,
My body,
My mind,
And learned how to trust again.
Learned how to love again.
Learned how to be a person
Again.
I learned this
By being the willing victim.
I'm chaotic energy
In the right hands
Fluid light
When I'm bound
My screams no longer pierce the night sky
In agony
But rather,
Bliss.
I no longer cry out to god
For mercy.
I cry out to god
Because in my moments of painful ecstasy
I want to remember the name
Of the deity
Who was blind and deaf
To an eighteen year old broken girl.
The bruises I bear now
Are no longer reminders of the horror I faced.
They are hand written condolences, sweetly stinging love letters,
And heartfelt tributes to the beauty I was rebirthed into.
I am no longer a victim.
I have a name.
I have a soul.
And I have a choice.

Falling

I didn't want to let go.
We raced through the streets that night,
playing truth or dare with the wind.
I held on to you as you
whipped us through sidestreets
on your two wheeled
death machine.
By the time we stopped,
I was breathless, and I didn't want to let go,
but I did.
I didn't want to let go
the first night you held my hand
We laughed and smiled and whispered
downtown,
listened to stories,
and began creating our own.
I snuck my hand into yours,
as we walked toward the bookstore.
But I didn't want to let go,
though, I did.
I didn't want to let go,
When you wrapped your arms around me,
your lips pressed to mine,
your body
leaning into mine,
your heart
beating in time with mine,
Your breath,
Stilled, like mine.
I didn't want to let go,
But, I did.
I didn't want to let go
The first time you grabbed my hand, and led me out onto the dance floor.
The bass was pounding through my chest,
My body moved in time with yours,
Everybody else just dissappeared
And there was only you and I.
I didn't want to let go,
But I did.
I didn't want to let go
When I wrapped my arms around you while you slept.
Being curled up next to you,
Left my dreams sweet.
I wanted you to know I was there, though you were softly snoring in my ear.
I didn't want to let go.
But, I did.
I don't want to let go,
Because my soul recognizes yours.
I love the way you make me feel when we touch,
When we laugh at ourselves, or at each other,
When we're together, or
when we're apart.
So, I'm holding on.
Holding on to the ideas, the dreams, the talks and the stories, the jokes, the good times, and you.
I'll hold on to you.
Until we're ready
To let go.