The Breath of Vulnerability

These are the pieces buried in sand, settled precariously at the bottom of my ocean. It is time to detach, drift upwards and move towards the surface, compelled by the light. Hidden bits, secretly concealed or perhaps cleverly disguised. These, I measure and dose, careful not to extend that which I perceive you need not know. I think I am my most beautiful when no one is looking yet I am aware that the eyes of others continually alter my own perception. When did I give this permission and why do I perpetuate its myth? Drift higher. No longer can I be anchored by fear.

I am naked. Perfect in inherent imperfection. Purest in this impure manifestation. I stand before you, before me, unafraid to look, to peel back the layers of obvious and confront the sultry, the beautiful, the terrifying unfamiliar. When the fear beckons, strips me bare and momentarily suffocates, that is when I am most startled by the almost forgotten intake of air. Inhalation comes, a cognitive breath, and I am no longer under water. I am drenched by the rain… a million drops of knowing, where intimidation can no longer ignite fear because it’s tender soul has already been revealed. It is the deepest depths of me.

I drift up and simultaneously sink down. I choose to step off the edge of safety and fall into the deep, dark pool of discomfort… for what glimmers from above, too beckons from below. I will go inward and float weightless, suspended in that vast expanse of stillness that hangs at the bottom of each exhale. For that brief but timeless moment I am reminded that this structure we call vulnerability is the house where unfathomable grace lives, built upon the property of my flesh. Here, I will know my own beauty, unalterable by anyone else’s eyes.