maybe the sexiest thing you could ever wear is the truth of your ache.

maybe undressing was never about fabric.
maybe it was about
the armor we stitched into our spines,
the weight we mistook for ribs.

maybe i don’t want your body
before your breath.
maybe i don’t want your mouth
before your mornings.
maybe i don’t want your hands
before i know what they have carried.

i want you to tell me
what part of yourself
you keep zipped inside your throat.
i want to be the reason you unzip it.
i want to hold the silk of your sobbing
without telling it to be quiet.

fuck lingerie—
wear your tremble for me.
wear the way your pulse
has never learned how to slow down.
wear the ghosts of every time
someone called you too much.
wear the moan of your first heartbreak,
the gasp of your first joy.
wear nothing
but the way you look at me
like a place to land.

tie my wrists with the sound of your silence
and tell me what it means.
tell me what part of you is still a locked door.
tell me what part of me
has always been the key.

fuck skin—
let me bite into your beliefs.
let me press my mouth
against the history in your shoulders.
let me learn the dialect of your shame
and speak it fluently.

i don’t want your naked body
until i know the full weight of your naked name.
until i know what your darkness calls itself.
until i know the shape your fears make
when they crawl beneath the covers.

maybe there is nothing more naked
than letting someone trace
the shape of your grief
with their mouth,
nothing more raw
than allowing them to taste
the saltwater
you keep behind your ribs.

and maybe—
maybe—
intimacy isn’t what you take off.
it’s what you let be seen.