Skin

The biggest organ in the human body is the skin, an organ being defined as a group of tissues that all do the same job. The job in the skin’s case is to keep bad bits from entering your body and infecting it.

If your skin does it’s job it’s a protective organ, keeping the good bits in and the bad bits out. When it gets pierced or ruptured then thats in most people the fault of an external agent, a bullet, a knife, a fist if punched hard enough.

The skin is a part of the body, a part of the self therefore, to tear it, to open it wantonly, willy-nilly, is to invite anything in to allow your body, to allow part of yourself to be exposed to forces that deny the luscious hemlines and necklines.

The skin is a covering, enveloping thing and sometimes we choose to decorate and sometimes we choose to open it. And there are many many people, including me, who go through life and have periods where we can’t tell the scars apart from the tattoos and yes thats a poetry reference though I can’t think of many who might remember it.

People spend huge quantities of money every year on moisturisers and botox and products to keep young looking skin. Teenagers wipe off their natural grease with teatree oil or clearisil and then slap different greases back on again.

People don’t get what an amazing thing their skin is. Or how wonderful it is to wear tight clothing, worn right up against the skin showin off every curve and line. Or how amazing it is to show as much skin as you can, hemlines up to here showing the creamy curve of your bottom if someone looks carefully enough, necklines plunging between your breasts to show your navel, gently rounded, pierced by something people might swear was a ruby if you looked expensive enough…

People deride their bodies, say they aren’t a part of themselves. Well I have a newsflash, they are what you have for this life and this life only, use them as you will because you only got one chance with them and then they’re gone. Bodies are beautiful and fantastic and amazing.
Do you know how amazing it is that you can lift your hand and twist your arm and its a painless beautiful moment? You can just move and have the sunlight shine on your skin and it doesn’t crack or rub or open wide all of it’s own accord.
Do you know how lovely it is to swim and not to itch?
I’m itchy right now. I have a skin infection. I had six years of pretty much clear skin, comparatively at anyrate. And now…crashing down all because of what kept me pretty for six years. Yeah it’s all about the body beautiful with me isn’t it? All about appearence and what you look like.

Some people are reading this and shaking their heads thinking I care only about showing off my body, thats all that matters to me, I lack any understanding of the concept of self because all I think of as regards self is body.
Some people are arrogant little fuckers who don’t listen. But, aren’t we all?

I get fed up of people who don’t appreciate their bodies. The body is a gift, all bodies, everywhere, all skin covered flesh, all of the skin is a gift given to keep the bad things out and the good things in. But it’s a gift with a time limit and for some people the time is more limited than others. I’ve had six years.

People who don’t get ill react too much to people who do. They get panicky over the least little thing and call the time that they had a very bad cold the time they had flu. They don’t get that something might look awful and not be contagious, or that something that looks harmless might be. And they react as though every illness is serious and as though every cure is complete. I have two chronic skin conditions, and this week and infection. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. I have been on steroid creams for nineteen years now. What cures me makes me weaker.

You get used to it when you look like you got fried by some alien death ray. And looking normal is nice, it’s a bonus. The real plus is feeling, is not itchy, is not cracking up and bleeding everywhere but the icing on the cake is people looking at you just like they look at everyone else.

People touching you and hugging you and not being repulsed and you not aching and itching and hurting because someone else touched you. I have allergic reactions that vary, mostly its being touched, being touched by some hair or some sweat, someone else licking me. You know it’s amusing to blame the other person, maybe their poor personal hygiene, make cracks about it even, but when it comes right down to it it’s me. My body, my skin, it changes and the good times will last for as long as they last and then they’ll be over, very nearly over as it is. Quick wake up call to remind me I don’t have forever. I don’t have nearly long enough and I have to do it all and do it quickly or else it’ll all be gone adn I’ll be sat inside that glass house again able to look out and not touch. I get such a rush from touching, such a rush from doing. I’m not very good at seeing things from the other persons point of view, something I’ve always regretted and something I’ve tried and failed to get better at…better to try and fail than never to try at all right?

I see everyone through myself and myself through eveyone else and I think isn’t that how everyone sees the world and judge them on my own criteria, but the reason I think like that is because I can’t think properly and see things through anothers eyes.

It is good to have a body and a skin that works, just as good as to have a mind, if if you don’t use both while you still can then whats the point?

The point is that I’ve been on steroid creams for the last nineteen years and they have given me six years of almost regular skin but now they’re showing their true colours, the first of the infections that they’ve made me susceptible to has hit and it’s not just my skin I have to be worried about anymore it’s my insides as well. Six years isn’t enough, but then fourteen or forty would never be enough either so I’ll take what I’ve got and run…again. And you still think this is about what I look like don’t you? I don’t care about looking good I never have. I have eyes and I don’t look bad, especially when I’m trying. This is about being able to live within a body as hard as possible for as long as possible, and it’s about frustration. I never am very good at accepting the limitations of my body or mind and the itching is driving me a little nuts. Just like when I was a kid. When it comes down to it, it’s about control. But isn’t everything?

One thought on “Skin

  1. My fingers touching you, and your fingers touching me…and the blossom above.

    I don’t worry anymore, because we have spoken the words too long unsaid.

    See you in eighteen days.

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