It rings in my ears, the words “why are you showing me this?”
Already insecure that my past
The dimly-lit corners of my self would be an obstacle to being loved,
“Why are you showing me this?” made me want to hide away,
Good God, hide away and forget I ever let the light shine there and over there.
Some women run naked in the woods, hair wild and skin shining in the moonlight.
Others are set in stone, brass, thick clay,
and less some permanent mediums by artists who gaze upon their seemingly fragile forms,
Their unscarred, their milk, cocoa, fresh butter, and raw honey bodies,
Immortalized as untested vessels of life, objects of fertility,
testaments to all the beauty the world holds in budding spring and dying fall.
I, with high collar and tall heel, so clothed and so serious,
Feel just as exposed to sweet, careful, discerning moonlight eyes when I speak, write, laugh, hit send.
Like the naked wild woman glimpsed by chance, like the model frozen and adored on her pedestal,
My mind and its shadows unguarded are similarly vulnerable,
My inside and out are overexposed,
To those who seem curious,
And forget I am naked to them.
Kaitlin Sansoucie 