Let Me Love Me Naked.

America’s next top model, undressed, reassessed.

Sorry Tyra, I’m done playing fake.

I’m going to stand here.

Stand here naked.

With confidence stretched blithely across my thighs (thighs that are too thick),

wrapped around my skin (skin that is too loose),

smoothing my face (acne face).

Keep your material girls, Madonna, let me love me.

Let me love me.

Let me love me naked.

Bare-boned soul, spread-eagle, open to the world that awes over my

nakedness and pinches the fat on my arms

with stainless steel forceps.

I want to be naked, naked and proud, proud of my soul, proud of my nakedness.

I want my body to be bare and my heart stripped clean

and I want to stand there, mirror to skin, skin to soul, and say

I am naked—and I have arrived.

The slick knifes glinting off shamed skin—

this is why.

The heavy heaving into the toilet, ribs-sticking-through—

this is why.

The skinny jeans, the heels-that-make-your-butt-look-great, the push-up bras—

these are why.

We are trees that have been struck by lightening,

and our charred limbs are aching for relief, for release, for anything and everything.

For nakedness.

So we stand with our eyes open-wide to the skies,

bare skin pin-pricked by sharp, biting air,

arms stretched, reaching,

fingers grasping,

feet planted firmly in soil,

toes digging into dark, damp earth.

Naked trees.

Silhouetted for the world to see.

Because maybe if we can be beautiful naked,

if we can love our own battered, bruised, and broken bodies,

we can love others’ nakedness--their deep down god-awful, horrible, hard-to-touch nakedness—

maybe we can love that too.