Inner Beauty: a strip tease

You’re always wanting more,
afraid I’m holding some
thing back – by which
you only mean how
I really feel
about you.

All I say and all I do
must be a fraud, a
joke – since no
one could ever
really love
you.

The fact is I understand completely –
I think the same about myself, of
course; but I have no
unfathomed depths.
Here – I’ll prove
it just for
you:

Take off my clothes, one by
one, and what do you have?
A sack of pored scarred
skin, rough patches,
marks, hair, nails,
nipples, and
other bits.

Take off my skin, layer by
layer, and what is left?
Muscle, raw nerve,
fat cells, cartilage:
in short, blood-
soaked meat.

Scrape that away, then what?
Organs, tubes, bones.  And
beneath them?  Marrow
maybe, and baby
blood.  And
under that?
Air.

Take away work, money (there’s
not that much anyway),
position – the things
I don’t care about,
and what is
left?

Take away thoughts, opinions,
dreams.  Then what?  Take
family, friends, stories;
take past, take future.
Again, nothing.

The handful of things I still hold
naked, nameless, and exposed,
I have not mistaken for my
own;  the things that hurt,
the things I feared, the
things I loved, the
things I’ve been
ashamed of –
smooth stones
for my sling
to fight
giants.

Like the time I watched angels
who prevented my murder
smoke Kools and fade
while the bus
pulled away;

like the pretzel communion
we took with my father
alone together the
hour of his
death;

like where the scars that bubbled
through skin on my soft
hands and feet come
from, the ones I
can’t find on
my face;

like my earliest memory –
remembering God,
remembering
kindness and
knowing
nothing
to fear;

like refusing to drink
with the best friend
I’ve had the last
night he was
alive;

like getting naked with my
neighbor when we were
tiny, knowing she knew
too much and
didn’t want
me to ask
why;

like the first person I hurt
accidentally by being a
coward – that look in
the eyes I still
see mornings
before I’m
awake;

like what blue
really means
and why it
maters.