We see our skin everyday. 

the flesh gripping tightly on our bones and protecting us from the world outside

as we shake a hand,

dry our eyes,

or contemplate in the mirror upon if I can fit in and erase my thighs,

I decide on what to do to myself

for clearer skies

yet I know I will not reach perfection.

 

We see other's skin everyday. 

as we meet a stranger's gaze,

brush by an arm,

glace at a face,

that you notice is covered in bruises from the night before

when her husband came home drunk and she told him she was going out

when he grabbed her

and hit her,

and hit her,

and hit her 

until she couldn't move. 

And he wandered off to find more beer as she staggered up the stairs

to cry her lonesome self to sleep.

 

Because skin

is only the outisde layer of a book 

that can show you somethings but hide others away,

and it is the canvas of our soul 

that proves how we have lived.

 

We have lived through this time where the world decides to judge you

for something you cannot conrol,

something everyone has that is normal

that is okay,

because it must be okay.

 

It's filled with contellations in galaxies of universes

filled with scars and birthmakes and dimples and wrinkles, 

and in these constellations there are things that only we can make out,

pointing to one spot or another 

connecting us directly back to that moment when

 

I was three.

And on that day I fell out of a tree

and up my ear plunged a stick.

Yes, that stick broke the surface of my skin

but I will never let it touch me,

it can never dig deep enough 

through my layers of skin to touch me,

just as I see everyone's eyes do 

as I walk down the street,

but they will never break through what is me,

what is rightfully me,

 

And my dear thank you,

she said to me as I pulled open the door that was once ajar 

for the feeble old woman who rolled her walker into the grocery store.

And as she did so I saw her face

her old and wrinkled and beautiful face

that had lived many years more than I.

Her skin loose as if it were to fall of in an instant

but she smiled,

and at that moment I could tell 

she allowed her body to change 

but never did she let anyone get through her skin

to change the mind that was hers,

it was rightfully hers to keep,

and love,

and cherish through rough times,

yet her skin.

 

Filled with pages of age mark connect the dots 

would always be on display.

 

And yours is

and will still be

someday.