To Touch Me Is To Love Me

Don’t think this applies to everyone.
This only applies to me.
It’s my skin we’re talking about.

If you see it.
If you see any of it,
then I want you to touch it.

A white glimpse of waistline when I stretch on the sofa.
The crook of my elbow when I roll up my sleeve.
The base of my finger when I take off my silver ring.
The dip of my collar when I tilt my head just so.
The subtle bumps of my back when I lie on my stomach
after a long day,
letting my shirt ride up.

This is how I ask, because I don’t know how to say it.
I fear you’ll see me strange, and want to keep your distance.

I wear my heart in my skin.
If you’re my lover. If you’re my friend.
If you know you’re someone I trust,
then please touch me.

Don’t worry if I curl up, or flinch, from your skin on mine.
I feel people so little, that you will be like lightning
in my sense’s eye.
So heated and bright and so close,
that part of me is terrified.
I want it so much.

I want it to be okay for me to hold your hand,
and I want to hope that hand might brush my back.
Stopping my anxious spine from rising sick.
I want you to see my frown and kill it,
with pokes to my sides or traces at my neck,
or laughing grapples that make me forget
why my lips were so downtrodden.

But you must understand,
that it only works when it comes from you.
Someone I trust.
That is all you have to be.

I have to know that when you hold me tight
you won’t break me into pieces.
I need to know that you know me enough
to not touch the places that make me hurt
to think of them.

I need to know that you see me.
See that touch is key to me,
under this numbed sky.
I need you to know that I love you,
and whatever your comfort be I shall birth it in droves
so you can breathe it.
Everyday.

I need you to know that I need you.
This is why I show my heart-skin, and why I touch you.
This is me asking you. One that I trust.
Please touch me.
This is the only way I can feel that those I trust,
do love me.