You may undress me.
With words or with hands, I relish in the
Freedom
Empowered by the solidarity that
Is my body
Each freckled constellation
And the whispered curve of my back
Leading away from prudish dampenings of my present
Long gone are the days of youthful angst
And growing pains,
Bony chests,
And awkward joints
Clutching stomachs in fear and shame—
Strip me then, and you would’ve
found
A skeleton in a trench coat
Or maybe three, balancing atop each other
Pretending to be grown when
I’d yet to flesh out my life
I slide a hand along my
Overhanging belly in the mirror
And revel in the crassness of its bulging lines
The crudeness of time’s markings on my soul is ecstasy,
Release.
Strip me now of this mortal pretense
And let me holler and rave
At the Adonis of existence.

– Hannah Elliot-Lindh