I spend a considerable amount of time questioning how accurately others can tell what I’m thinking or feeling; if they can tell at all.

Generally, I am fairly easy to read—I am not a mystery.

Our eyes serve as powerful features through which we convey who we are.

They have the capacity to grasp another’s gaze with gentleness, intensity, understanding and curiosity. Our eyes reflect a propensity for observing, for questioning, for finding and for learning.

Due to my eyes’ suggestive nature, I often wonder if my opulent expressiveness and unmasked sincerity exposes more of me than I intend to reveal:

When that heated wave of discomfort boils over and everything feels red;

when the glittery burst of well-kept promises electrifies all of me, from bones to skin;

when being alone is mercilessly chilled into loneliness, a dark and vapid tunnel;

when catching a brightness found only in dreams, until realized in all its glory;

when forcibly swallowing whatever the moment offers, trying to sink into its proposed reality;

when wanting to to share, to give, to openly love;

when the voice in my head tells me to hide;

do others see my thoughts?

Am I exposed?

I have been stripped of my own accord, naked in my purest intentions. Maybe all it takes is one look to know how I feel, what I think and what I will likely do.

Or perhaps, people don’t see anything. Maybe some are illiterate in the realm of sensitivity, conditioned to believe that paying too much attention to the emotional merits a diagnosis of being unnecessarily dramatic or self-absorbed.

But the truth is that we’re all exposed—we all feel what we feel, we show it in some way and we identify it in others more than we realize.

Few take the time to look for the honesty in its bare expression, outpouring from the deepest space in our souls.

If we never look for it, we will never see it.

I am exposed because I allow myself to be. I give others the opportunity to find my naked truth, and I seek it in them as well. I know to look for it because I consciously offer it.

My naked truth is not a mark of weakness, egotism or being “overly sensitive,” but a willingness to live openly, truthfully and lovingly. It’s how we connect with others.

Authentically exposing ourselves inspires a conversation that needs no words or gestures—awareness is the sole means of communication.

If we know, we look for it; if we look for it, we see it.

My conclusion?

Exposure is in the eye of the beholder.

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Assistant Editor: Jes Wright/Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo Credit: Monte Arnold/Pixoto