Bare Wit Me

Bare wit me—

I’m not asking for patience.

I’m asking for exposure.

For the skin beneath the stories,

the truth beneath the tailoring,

the pulse beneath the poetry.

Bare wit me—

I’ve hidden hurricanes

inside clever conversation,

turned heartbreak into punchlines,

and dressed old wounds

in expensive vocabulary.

I made a wit of myself

so no one would witness me.

But wit is a mask

with eyeholes too small for intimacy.

Bare wit me—

Meet me where confidence

limps home barefoot,

where ego hangs its crown

on a crooked nail.

Watch me untie the knots

I once called personality.

Become less masterpiece,

more fingerprint.

Less performance,

more pulse.

Less “look at me,”

more “look through me.”

Bare wit me—

I want the kind of closeness

that terrifies mirrors.

The kind that says,

“I know exactly where you’re broken,

and I chose a chair beside the crack.”

Not when I am polished,

but when I am peeling.

Not when I am certain,

but when my questions

outnumber my answers.

Bare wit me—

I am shedding every version

of myself built for approval.

And what remains

is not pretty.

It is truer than pretty.

Raw as first language.

Sharp as unsent letters.

Sacred as a scar

that never learned shame.

Bare wit me—

Until there is nothing left

to hide behind.

No armor.

Nor act.

Nor wit.

Just skin,

soul,

and the trembling space between.

Just the beautiful risk

of being fully seen—

and discovering

that love arrived

not despite the nakedness,

but because of it.