I am a little offbeat today.  Sure it’s been a week and I should be over it but obviously I am not.  The question now presents since I am not…how do I fix it?

For a ‘typical’ event drop I have a plan of action which has proven to work pretty well.  It involves vitamins and rest and specific actions to bring myself down in a safe healthy manner. Last week was not a ‘typical’ event though.

The scariest part about it is that August 4 and I didn’t do nearly the number of things we are capable of doing as a team.

Most don’t take me seriously when I mention the shop I’m capable of wrecking.  They instead smile and nod as if they’ve seen and heard it all before. In return I smile and nod knowing that the tale of the tape explains the story and those few who’ve seen that version of me are forever marked by her presence.

It makes me wonder if my status is the result of being too much. I’ve learned over the years that people say they want something and do not actually, present company included.

If we’ve been together at a lifestyle event you’ve seen me without clothes but almost no one has seen me naked.

Naked me is a lot.

Those who have seen me naked rarely see me naked in a sustained fashion.  The one who has the longest, even though he said it was what he wanted he chose someone different. I don’t have to see her naked to know how different it is, I know who and what I am.

I’d like to think that there is someone, or multiple someone’s out there who can handle naked me. I question that at times knowing how hard she is for ME to manage and I live with the bitch.

I got to have a mini conversation this week about …..not sure of the word I want to use here.  Perhaps I will explain the actions to deliver understanding:

No Limit is a phrase tossed about my lifestyle recklessly.  I am one of those chicks who will be an asshole and ask if those no limit chicks are prepared for the day when he wraps his penis in barbed wire and says spread ’em. I say such things to try to trigger the understanding that there are things out here that you cannot prepare for and to consider either your exit or entry plan when they appear.  I say it not because I am an asshole [although you know I am] – I say it because I’ve have either the fortune or misfortune to experience some shit people don’t prepare for.

Naked me at her essence is no limit.  There is no word NO.

When presented with that it can be challenging to figure out what to do.  It can make one question if they can ever be enough. It can have one ignore met declaration that yes you are enough, because you cannot accept that after all you’ve seen I could possibly be telling the truth. Life teaches us that people lie. Naked me doesn’t lie though, she doesn’t have words, only deed.

I protect her as best I can, no one else will. Yet she is still harmed at times because I am capable of only so much.

As I prepare her to go back to sleep, and sleep she must, she sits beside me leashed and restless. I would let her go if I could, she should be just as loved and accepted and free as anyone. It’s been years since roamed free. Her proximity to the surface of my existence was last seen 5 years ago, and last weekend she didn’t emerge nearly as close to the surface as she did then.

Yet I still know and understand who and what she is might be too much even for him. The circumstances which exist that we would know definitively I do not wish to occur. At my core I still do not wish pain upon another, with 2 exceptions. He is neither of those exceptions.

I still wonder if presented with naked me, if he too would tap out and choose lesser.  Choose the diluted version. Leave me rather than basque in the glory.

If in his shoes I might, but the whole ‘point’ is I do not want to wear those fucking shoes.  Ever. I have to keep putting them on and it’s energy draining.

I think of someone as I type this. I look at her actions, all designed to not be alone, yet still frustrated and yearning. Even on excursion.

I know I do not want that for myself.

While a Saturday afternoon without companionship is not at all what I want right now. 7 days ago I was preparing for magnificence. Today I am preparing for laundry. I also don’t want to buy the loyalty of someone I am forcing into the box I have created so I don’t have to be alone.

I want and deserve someone who I can be naked with.

I want and deserve someone who in return will be naked with me.

Yes, on days like today I’d like to have someone I can watch Luke Cage with and just BE.

Yet I also know the presence of anything less than nakedness are shackles I will buck and resist at every opportunity.

It has taken 45 years but I am at a place in my existence where I do not have to choose less than because there are no other obligations at the door. While I weep at night missing those obligations and carry anger unprecedented at how they were ripped away from me, the reality is they are not present.

I have only me, and naked me, to consider and that freedom achieved was the most painful thing a human can endure, it is still here.

I may not put naked me back into the cage just yet. I may allow her to sit here for a moment. I have a feeling it will be some time before she can roam again, and it feels cruel to bury her when the sunlight looks so good on her skin.

She really is beautiful. I really am beautiful.

Aphrodite Brown