When we take our clothes off
please promise me
that you won’t laugh.
Tell me that you’ll be kind
about what you see
and remember
that despite the scars and pocks
and assorted abnormalities,
there was something amongst it all
that you had wished to see.
Don’t regret that decision, please.
Don’t make me regret it.

Ignore the smells.
Put them aside
along with the squelching sounds
my stomach makes
when it meets
what I can only assume
are other parts of my stomach.
Accept that sweat is a natural function
even in the quantities I produce.

I beg of you,
when we reach that point
– if we ever do –
keep in mind what I have said before:
that this in a way
is what you had requested
and also
you had been warned.