What Strikes at My Heart with Fear

Do I dare share with you my love this secret    
The thing above all else that fills me with fear at this moment    
     
Leaves me feeling so petrified and frightened    
Like the little boy I once was so very long ago    
     
Would it make you lose respect, think me weak    
Cause me to fall from esteem in your eyes    
     
I'm sure you could try to guess, figure it out    
Maybe it was going to war, surrounded by danger    
     
Perhaps you would go with failure, being unmasked    
Revealing all of this self-doubt and uncertainty    
     
Wrestling with my own mortality, the stalking of death    
Wondering if my life had purpose or that God would approve    
     
Then again it could be the thought of losing a loved one    
Or falling out of love or being discarded for another    
     
While all good hunches, none are the truth    
You see it's something happening more often than you think    
     
It is the moment after bliss, while I am still coupled with you    
As I feel my strength, my manhood soften, la petite morte    
     
For then I am naked, vulnerable, and scared    
Lying helpless in your arms, overwhelmed    
     
Drowning in feelings and sensations that I normally tamp down    
Now a swim in a great ocean of emotionality, fighting heaving waves    
     
Thankfully you are always there with me, holding me tight    
Gently caressing my back and shoulders, soothing me    
     
It is only just now that it dawns on me, goosebump realization    
That you have known this all along and even love me deeply for it