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I saw my skin as clouds of creme in coffee,
As the caramel within a toffee,
As the swirls of detergent in a bucket,
I love my skin, I remind myself lest I forget.

I saw it as an imperfectly mixed pasta,
As an unstirred Irish creme liqueur,
It reminds me of the side of me that’s a gangsta,
Like the work of a passionate newbie restaurateur.

It is mine, my own
No different than my blood or my bone.
I don’t need to alter it,
Let the others adjust as they see fit.

It took me quite a while,
But my skin too began to smile.
The efforts of a village it took,
So, lest you forget, love the way you look!
This poem has been penned as an ode to vitiligo. It is not a cry for help, nor does it invite pity parties. Rather, it represents the splendidness of the human body, and how truly life-altering self-love and acceptance can be.
Having said this, I'd like to affirm to the masses that even if a cure for vitiligo miraculously did appear, i would not take it. The speckled, marbled and patchy skin I now call my own, is MY NORMAL, and quite frankly, it's the only one that matters :)
There once was a family of clouds,
Blue were their noses and blue were their shrouds.
Amongst them lived 3 outcasts, though
As though through the blue, someone had brazenly run a plough!

Blotchy, whitey and marbly let’s call them,
Of the big blue sky, they were the beautifully botched hem.
The smurfy blues didn’t think so, alas!
And neither did the the puppets on the ground, peeping through the looking glass.

Rain was their saviour,
For amidst those tears, no one would notice their stark behaviour.
The smurfy blues covered them up,
Lest someone see their erroneous turf.

Then shone the sun one fine day,
And like rising phoenixes, the castaways came out to play.
For a thing such as beauty, ever so fickle
They were a miraculous honey-hued trickle.

The puppets on the ground too swapped their loyalties,
And soon the alleged drops of milk were favoured royalties.
The sky too embraced the cotton-ous hue amidst the smurfy blue,
And just like that, their fairytale slowly came true.
Among the scarce literature found regarding vitiligo, you would only find a single perspective i.e., the autoimmune warrior's. What about the spots themselves, I ask? How must they feel when their owner themselves wage a daily love/hate war? Aren't they bullied by their skin-coloured "normal" neighbours? Don't they get confused by their changing appearance?
This poem deals with THEM. And not unlike their owners, they too are ruddy steel-hearted, mind you!
luz maria Sep 2021
what's it like living with vitiligo?

it's a devastating nightmare that comes with constant stares and ugly looks.  what is much worse is what they say about you. i once had a partner that every time we fought he would call me awful names. he'd say i was a disgusting creature and that i should be embarrassed to be me. he would always tell me to put on my makeup with people came around, and me, rushing to go put it on so that they wouldn't stare or ask what was wrong. he would say that i'm an embarrassment to be around, that he was only with me because he felt sorry. he'd repeatedly cheat on me with much prettier girls and rub it in my face, and say i'm never going to be just as beautiful as them no matter how hard i try. in all honesty though, i would have preferred that he was like the other people. in my opinion, pretending to love somebody is much worse than being treated differently. i let him fill me up with emotional and sometimes physical pain until i finally exploded. i thought i've finally found the one that truly loved me for who i really was, with this skin condition and all. however some of it is my fault too. i wasn't completely honest in the beginning, i should've told you about my condition. now it's something i tell anyone i'm about to get close to. i wish you would've left if you weren't going to love me the way you said, and i wish i was strong enough to leave before you cause me any damage.  i stare in the mirror everyday and hate what i see. some days i'd be happier if there was a way i could peel off this skin. i haven't taught my self how love the skin i'm in, and i'm scared that if i don't start my son will turn out to be the same way his father was.

so if anyone ask, that's what it's like living with vitiligo. there's my truth. it's something i wouldn't recommend for anyone who isn't comfortable in their skin. love yourself first, fill yourself with so much love that you overfill and no matter how much people about you, your cup will never be empty.

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