SOUL: Wrapping around me,
Holding me close,
Tapping itself and clothing my nose.
Keeping me in and tight.
My safety and my sensation.

Feeling sunshine and shame,
Goosebumps and bruises,
Keeping me intact.
It changes color and indicates.
Touching me,
completely.

The skin on my back my protectorate.
The skin on my hands my guide.
The skin on my face my years here.

It is with me to the end.
It grows and stretches and covers my vessel.
It flinches and heals and craves to be nestled.
It sweats and bleeds and cracks.
It wrinkles and sags.
And Baby, it’s you and it’s me.
But beautifully, painfully, tragically it is not.

Because once the skin has done all it can do.
Once it is thinner and can work for this Sinner no more.
Once it has lived and known me through and true.
Though I have lived and known it too.
It dies.

And I go on. To claim another skin.

A skin to clothe my nose.
A skin to protect my soul.
A vehicle to let me travel on this earth I think I know.

Poor skin. Naive and Perfect.

SKIN: Poor soul.
Going on forever ever,
and never ending,
never resting,
always needing me.