We Should All Be Vulnerable

To fall in love is being able to sleep next to each other without a trace of fabric covering your bodies. It’s being able to stand before each other, completely bare and naked, and still feel comfortable. All with the lights on, with the blinds wide open. It’s that craving and undeniable desire to wake his tired and hazy state by gently placing your lips onto his. Your kiss stronger than any caffeinated coffee. It’s smiling through kisses and moaning through kisses when his tongue slips into your mouth. It’s your fingers dancing and flirting underneath the brunch table with his while other couples are conversing about their day. It’s going to a late-night party together and having a few too many drinks with other attractive people around but still being confident that he is yours and that you are his. It’s being able to separate and not stay glued to the hip, but it’s making eyes with each other in the dim lights in a crowded space. It’s coming together at the end of the night with alcohol swimming through your veins.

When the sky turns dark and only the moon and stars are shining, you can look into his eyes and see something light and glimmering too. That’s why you open yourself up like a dusty, old book that’s been hidden in the shelves for too long. You let him read you. Word for word. Preface. Dedication. Table of content. Glossary. Everything he can get his eyes on. That’s why you let him in; let him explore you, every part of you that you’ve kept tightly shut and closed. And he reads whatever you give him.
Investing your time in someone else is overwhelming and in a sense, terrifying. There was a reason why you kept yourself closed and small for so long, and to have someone voluntarily want to help you expand and grow is foreign.

He asks you how your day was. You tell him that your day went well. But he wants to know more about you. So he asks you what your fears are. What you are scared of. You tell him that you’re scared of everything. He wants specifics. So you tell him that you’re scared of bugs, illnesses, cancer, your parents becoming old, being alone, being too dependent, not becoming who you want to be, terrorism, corruption in politics, politics in general, death, and the way he looks at you. He asks you what your dreams are. No one’s asked you that in a long time because you are no longer a child. But you tell him that your dream is to be able to publish poetry and to advocate for what is right and to stay happy. And he will be more than willing to listen.

Do you know what that is?

It’s vulnerability. There’s something touching and beautiful about feeling safe around someone when you’re at your most vulnerable state. Vulnerability is raw, authentic, and organic. To experience love is to be vulnerable and stay vulnerable. Love is complicated and messy because you’re intoxicated through it all as if you took six shots of Jack Daniel’s after going out for a smoke. Your head spins, but he’s there to keep you straight. He’s there to keep you.