Poems about skin

Our skin tells more about us
Than most people would think.
So many stories to tell,
So many secrets that hide
In our skin.
Only a few layers deep,
Only a few chapters into the book of our lives,
And already one can learn so much about another.
And as we turn the pages, the skin we see becomes stronger.
Every scratch, every bruise, every scar has a purpose;
With these marks we reflect our battles,
Our defeats and our victories.
Every mark of ink holds a memory,
To illustrate the moments we shall never forget.
But our skin only shows us part of the story.
For the rest, we must dig past the layers
Until we reach the core of our bodies,
The soul of our stories.
And we will find the soul one layer at a time.

I am hyper aware
That my skin is cold
That I am not being touched.
I am uncomfortable
Like my skin is crawling.
It's almost like when I am being touched,
Because I hate when people touch me.
But instead of wanting to rip my skin off my bones,
It's like I don't even have skin to begin with.

I want to be held by you,
Loved by you.
I want your kiss to quench my thirst,
And your hands to hush my growling stomach.

I am skin-starved,
Touch-starved,
And it's making me drift away.
And I don't want to be far away,
But I know that I already am.

I need your love,
Your heart,
To help anchor me back down,
So that I can stay.
So that I don't
Drift away into volatile nothingness.

I miss the frozen air
Skimming the tilted surface
& pelting my bearded-face
With granular rock
As my snot drips
Solidly afixed
Between my red nose & blue lips,
These stinging eyes gazing
Upward into
The blackest of nights,
An hypoxic-mind
Trying to count stars,
Stay focused on my brick feet
While thinking of you,
Lying so sweetly
In the comforts
Of a huge warm bed,
A mountain of sheets,
Your skin on fire.

Don't think I am empty, don't think I am hollow
Without you I am nothing
Simply exposed muscle
You are my skin.

You are my barrier, you are my protector
I am a pile of organs and a pile of bones
You keep me snug, you hold me together
You are my skin.

Don't think I am empty, don't think I am hollow
I mean every word, it isn't for show
It's just that for now, this might be the way
To say what I mean and mean what I say

You are my skin.

I am here to tell you a little secret. It really shouldn't be one, but perhaps that is the main problem. I hope to somehow fix it. But here it is:

You are beautiful whether you believe it or not.

Here is a dangerous lie that our society and culture endlessly romanticizes:
ВЂў Beauty is skin deep.
This is the part where I prove them wrong.

Beauty is not skin deep.

Beginning at a young age, I developed an unhealthy concept of what true beauty was. To this day, I can still recall being twelve years old and devastatingly unhappy at my physical appearance staring back at me through my own reflection in the bathroom mirror. I saw nothing but ugliness glaring at me, the glass revealing all of my visible flaws. I didn't look like the girls in the magazines that scattered my bedroom floor, faces glowing like angels on glossy paper. I wanted to. I wanted more than anything to be comfortable being myself.

There was just so much that stuck out to me, so much that needed fixing. Curves in all the right places? Forget about it, more like a stomach that hung over my jeans. My hair was so thick that it snapped every single hair tie and couldn't hold a single curl. My nose sat awkwardly on my face, always something to sigh at whenever I would catch a glimpse of myself. My eyes were too dark, too brown to be beautiful. I couldn't grasp this idea of unattainable perfection, the kind of beauty that only exists on the airbrushed models on movie posters.

And because I could not love my appearance. I could not love myself. My self-confidence plummeted at this age, causing a wave of hysteria to envelope me. Trapping me in its embrace, this flourishing hatred began to consume everything that I was, distorting the visions of the potential I carried within me.

There was nothing beautiful about it, hating every single inch of myself. I was so busy trying to fit into the mold of the most gorgeous human being, trying to wear a mask of a person who turned heads whenever they entered the room. My mind had been wrapped around this idea countless of times to the point where I could no longer find anything worth loving inside of me.

But while chasing this idea of flawlessness, it was almost as if I had forgotten about everything else. The things that composed myself during that time period, the things that were not visible to the naked eye. The magnificent things that were present in me, that made me who I was- hidden by a wall I had put up by myself simply because I felt the need to hide from the judgmental eyes of an imperfect society.

Years have passed and now I love who I am. I am no longer twelve years old, but there are still many painful insecurities that plague me, except now I am strong enough to look at them and smile.

I have so much to be thankful for. Though I do not stand 5'7 like I had wished, I feel tall when I radiate kindness to the people around me. I do not have runway legs, but they are strong enough to leap through the air and run away from everything that no longer respects me. I do not have piercing blue eyes, but mine are capable of finding art in everything around me. I may not possess an hourglass shape, but I know how to use the time I am given to impact my peers in a positive manner. I may have bad days, but that doesn't mean I have to give up every ounce of faith and hope left within me. I may be ridiculously imperfect, but I am so outrageously real- and surprisingly, that is all I ever want to be.

The skinny girls in magazines and shirtless poster guys are still beautiful, but that doesn't mean that you aren't. To my boys- You can be attractive without a six-pack or a six-foot stature. And ladies, you can be stunning without a Kim Kardashian figure. You cannot be defined by a number that reads on a scale or the way your hair looks like when you forget to brush it in the morning. You are not labeled by the color of your skin, your athletic abilities, or whether or not your thighs touch when you walk. You are beautiful because you are you. The way you speak passionately about the things that keep you breathing. The way you laugh with your friends on the bus ride home from school until your sides feel like they're going to cave in. The way your eyes light up at the desire to understand, to learn, to grow. The way your smile spreads like the flu, even the way you fall asleep at your desk when you spend four hours finishing up the homework you could have finished two weeks ago.
You are made of blemishes, scars, imperfections, and insecurities- but they are just as wonderful as your soul. They are constant reminders of how far you have come, and the journey you have yet to fulfill. This is your life, and it would be a shame to go through it without leaving a mark.
They are the flowers growing in the sidewalk cracks of your mind. Do not let them be overshadowed by the debilitating weight of the world's words.

Let them grow, Let them be free.
Let yourself be beautiful for who you are
Rather than who you are not.

ЂњButterfly skin” they said.
2 words that shook me and tipped me into a dark depression.
My Margot, my special... special... don't like that word.
All I know is that my life would never be the same again.
Parenthood, the hardest job in the world just tripled in weight.
Urgh, how selfish.

I couldn't pull myself out of it.
I started a list, all the things she wouldn't be able to do or would need support with...

Applying make up
Shaving her legs
Carrying heavy shopping bags
Running in the rain. Running in general
Ballet lessons
Tattoos and piercings
Skipping a bath for a couple of nights
Camping
Athletics
Wearing high heels
Intimacy, would she be able to... start a family?

And then I thought of all the...

Confused looks
Judgements from outsiders
Abuse?
Having to explain myself
Not going out or taking her out
Not being a good Mum
The teasing, bullying, the blame.

I'm comforted by these 4 walls. Our routine.

I run her an antiseptic bath, wash her, dry her and pat her down gently, apply her steroid cream, moisturise her, apply barrier cream, wrap her in her zinc dressings, cut her clinifast dressings to size and put them on her and then dress her in her suits. Where's the time for adventure?
No, maintaining her skin and her health is the priority.

Just about getting by and the confidence to get her out and then the one time you venture out, “What's that on her face? Do you know what works wonders? Coconut butter. My work mate's Auntie's daughter's friend used it and it disappeared, no joke” and all I can think about through my assassin's smile is carving off this nitwit's skin and lobbing a jar of coconut butter at her ignorant face.

No you don't fucking get it, it's not eczema and yes she could have had it worse but can I just wallow in my own selfish bubble for a minute?

Should I just remove myself from her life so someone stronger can step in, man up and deal with this? Stop being stupid!

The “safe” bubble deforms, another gift from the mutation she inherited from me. It no longer has sides to prod and push, just a swamp of black.

Then one dark period, it came to me.

How about I change my list and write down everything she can do easily without me?

She makes me smile on cue
She never lets her condition get to her
She is as bright as a button and educates me daily
She is bossy beyond belief, if I ever get sidetracked with me drowning in my narcissism, she reminds me what to do and when to do it
She is beautiful and I mean breathtakingly beautiful
Her laugh, the kind of laugh where you know she's been around many more years then the mere 4 she's graced us with
She has the confidence to strike up a conversation with just about anybody
She slips and falls but after the initial trauma, she gets up and keeps going
She senses my neuroses and makes me laugh by pulling funny faces

It's through thinking of these things that I realise that if anything or anyone tries to take any of these most natural things away from her, I will be here. I have to be here. And all of this extra time I have to spend looking after her is a blessing. I don't have to spend extra time with her, I get to spend this time with her.

She's... we're going to be ok.


Emma Stewart

Sometimes i think about you
The one that i loved first
(the one that i still do)
And i get so incredibly sad
Because you were mine
I was yours
I thought
Talk to me
Jesus Christ just talk to me
Its nights like these
Where i cant help but to miss you
So deeply
That it rips my chest open
So i can see the flowers that you planted there


*are still growing

By Arcassin Burnham


Thrusting,
Everlasting sensation,
Desires and fantasies,
Are main factors of,
Intimate contact,
So when I contact you,
Then you should know what I expect,
I just wanna touch a body I'm not here to neglect,
My you can be my test subject,
Let's experiment,
Perfected the perfect serum,
I'll put it on,
And give you a night you won't forget.