Litany

My lower body opens up, ripe, sweet, muskily slick, taking you in, a perfect hold, tight yet effortless embrace.

Taking you because you are giving yourself to me and I want it all.

All that you have, and all that you don't have;

all that you've gathered, carefully, recklessly, all that stuck to you;

all that you've misplaced, all that you didn't want but had to bear, all that you wanted but never got, all that's been taken away from you;

all the you are and all that you are not;

what you wanted to be and what you feared you might be;

the full and the empty;

the sins and the virtues, the sane and the crazy;

pain and joy, words and screams and silence;

skin and all that's under the skin, even if I can never know what it is;

and I want it all;

and I will take all of it that you have to give,

not to keep inside myself but to touch it and taste it, and to let what can fly, fly, and let what can grow, grow, to bury what ought to be buried,

and to give back to you what you need.