I was told my skin was like the sky,
I was pale and overseen but with freckles
that gave the stars a run for their money.
I could be as beautiful as an untouched field of snow
if I tried.
I could be as beautiful as fire and danger...
if I tried.
If you looked close enough, I could be beautiful,
but I'm not.
Nobody wants to feel dry, cracked skin
beneath their soft hands.
Nobody wants to see weak, pale skin
squirming away from them in the dark.
Truth be told, my surface is the blister in your mouth
that never leaves your mind.
My skin is the birds flying into your windows
again and again, trying to see what's inside.
My skin was the snow once, white and clean,
but now it's foul and well-trodden, past
the footprints and soft sheen of melting ice
and into a beige sludge lining
the pavement beneath your feet.
My body is as cold as they come
and yet snow could never sit on me for very long
so instead I'm dripping and damp,
the feeling of wet hands touching
rough paper. What I do to skin
is what fire does to literature,
destroy and destroy and destroy.
It's as if every mark on my body
is a word waiting to be annihilated
and engulfed by smoke. It's as if
I tried to be ice and winter
but instead, I'm burning alive
and I can't get out of the skin that's on fire.