“Take off your clothes.”

This is you.

The you that wants to be known.

And me, upside-down reclined on your couch.

Stockinged legs slung over its back.

Head hanging off its front.

Neck stretched long.

In you I delight that I might have finally found someone.

Not only smarter, but stronger than I am.

Not because I have a desire to be protected.

But because I am fascinated by the challenge it presents.

“Take off your clothes,” you instruct again.

Your voice now with that edge of stern.

I ponder the pieces decorating my body.

In what order of poetry I’d like to undress.

“Now.”

Sometimes, I think, you take my contemplation for hesitation.

What you may not realize is: there’s an art to directing the movie of my life.

Ever so serpentine and supine, I languorously remove my clothes.

Feel the considerable weight of your gaze upon me.

I begin mapping the sensations of my body.

As experienced by your discovery of it.

“Open your legs,” you command.

Because you and you alone are charting this new continent.

I do as I’m told.

And you, like a long-awaited explorer, fall to your knees upon its dark soil.

The long-slumbering seeds, buried just beneath the surface.

Practically begging for your presence.

Wake me. Wake me. Please.

That great divide between what I haltingly communicate to you with my language and what you communicate to me so abundantly with your touch.

No one has ever known me.

Not one man.

Ever.

Like you.

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