Let’s Stay Awhile

By

From the moment we met
You came my way too strong
Boldy and aptly while at it
My eyes linger on watching your lips speak
A thousand miles per hour about life
And I retreat to the most deafening part of my soul
The silence that bonds us together
And yet makes us question who we are together and apart
The parallels of our lives capture the connection we seek
But we do not want to go there
To a place of acknowledgment of this rare bonding
Being with you

I peel off the layers of myself
As much as you peel off your own
And every layer that we take off each other
We see nothing but our naked selves
And every minute that you undress me
I wonder, am I afraid for you to see me?
Would my scars solicit judgment on your end?
Would you disapprove of who I have become?
And if so, can I forgive you?
And better yet forgive myself for letting you see me in the nude?
I watch you look at every inch of myself
As if to dissect you through me
And if there is no other way to define intimacy beyond sex
This encounter must be the most that it will ever be

When you pout like a child
It moves me to soothe you
Even when deep inside I wanted you to be that confident man that you are
It’s precisely this contrast
Of a boy and a man
That enthralls my perception of you
You hold my hand without understanding the deeper meaning of it
You steal a kiss from me without knowing how to attune yourself to my feelings
You physically intertwine with my body without knowing the depths of my soul
I feel as though you can know me if you allow it
But you don’t

And me?
I’m just a girl who has yet to realize her potential as a woman
Dying to be held unconditionally
So I can find comfort and safety in someone else
But there’s another side to me that may present itself
I have learned to soothe my own pain by being alone
As I fought my way through self-sabotaging thoughts all my life
Gazing at the mountain tops or looking at the stars at night
This is the most freeing of a love I can ever hold
Even if only for a brief moment

And still, I am without love
Anticipating the birth of love within me
And perhaps with someone else if luck finds its way to me
So, don’t mind me if I look into your eyes and ponder the notion of us
Because the universe loves to play tricks and you and I are its game pieces.

I go back to watching you at awe with your untamed energy
The shared love for nature
The shard momentum of our dreams
And the misgivings of our past
If you were this much of an open book
Can I ask you then?
Is your heart open at all?
Or is it completely closed like mine?
I only ask for I seek a companion who differs with matters of the heart
So I can uplift my spirit towards a genuine openness to love
Selfish and outlandish, ain’t it?
That I impose on you my own deficits
But no worries
You don’t have to take me there
We can be where we are now and just fake our way through life.

As we gather the peels on the floor that we delayered from ourselves
Will you look me in the eye this time?
And tell me that if I let you into the very last layer of myself
You will stay long enough to see me smile
But as soon as you see me smile,
I will then be begging you
To fade away before I begin to cry
So, hey
Let’s stay awhile.