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  • Stripped Clean
    Kaydi Chou
    29 Dec 2004

    This is me
    Stripped Clean.

    Palahniuk once said it was a story about a boy and a girl. I wonder if my story is destined to just be about a girl- a girl so lost and lonely and so consumed with being unbreakable that she's forgotten what it's like to be truly

    stripped.

    So while I say this is me stripped clean, how stripped am I?

    Am I still bundled in feather comforters, downy quilts, fuzzy fleeces invisible to all except my own naked eye?

    Delusional.

    Let the word roll off your tongue: Delusional. Something slightly sultry, slightly smutty, and slightly salty about the word delusional.

    Something that's not completely like me- but is it what I am?

    Sultry, smutty, salty- like tears and running mascara. Like tears and smudged eyeliner on the back of a hand, and all that black only reads out "power" though it really means pain.

    And I've got some pain.

    Some days the pain is bad. Some days the pain is good.

    But any Day, the pain is there, and I've got it. Is that what I am stripped down? Pain?

    Or is it love? Am I love? Do I have love?

    Everyone wants to be loved. Maybe not to love, but to be loved. Everyone wants a little recognition, a little tip of the hat. So where's my tip?

    Or am I just the tipper?

    So, stripped down, I am pain. Maybe love.

    Definitely love.

    But what kind of love?

    Thigh-burning, heart-pumping, bed-thumping kind of love?

    Or white lilies, spring showers, and pink cheeks kind of love?

    Or self-deprecating, self-sacrificing, self-mourning kind of love?

    Or am I self-saving?

    Or am I self-serving?

    Not self-serving. Not with all this teenage-angst-poetry kind of pain stored up in me like some buzzing ball of black waiting and wanting and thirsting to burst out, bust out, in the form of tears and eyeliner, all Sultry and Smutty and Salty. All Delusional. Like jazz.

    Majandra tells me that love flows like water, but she burns like oil. I must burn like oil too, and my watery tears are just waiting to flow out and escape the burning flame.

    But why should I believe Majandra? I can't believe everything I see. I can't believe everything I hear. I can't believe everything I smell, everything I taste, everything I touch.

    I can't believe Majandra.

    Can I believe the very thing I love?

    Or maybe I can't love because I'm all wrapped up in feather comforters, downy quilts, fuzzy fleeces so that no one can see me.

    No, I can love. Though stripped, I can still tip

    my hat.

    Maybe I'm stripped to you, but I know I've still got layers and layers of blankets to peel away underneath. And no one but me can save myself from death by suffocation in all these layers of blankets.

    I've got pain underneath some of these layers.

    And the pain tells me to strip away some more.

    So here is what I have, layer under layer:

    I am thigh-burning.
    I am heart-pumping.
    I am bed-thumping kind of love.
    I am white lilies.
    I am spring showers.
    I am pink cheeks kind of love.
    I am self-deprecating.
    I am self-sacrificing.
    I am self-mourning kind of love.

    I am self-saving.

    But I am never self-serving.

    I am my kind of beautiful.