SKIN

Skin like porcelain, skin like snow,

How I’ve always despised you so, 

Skin like concrete, skin of the sea,

How I wish you would break off of me.

Skin as frail as crumbling bone,

Crying, resounding in guttural tones.

Skin forever, drastic love affair,

Disappearing like wishes in thin air. 

The largest organ in the body is the skin. I used to wish my skin were made of tall, dark walls. Vague, I know. I didn’t care what, any kind of walls, so long as they kept the outside world out. My skin has always been a point of contention in my life. I never liked mine much, and I grew up wishing I could have the crystalline, pearly skin of the models on TV. Because skin is there for everyone to see and point out. 

I realize I don’t write much about my physicality, because I primarily only like to verbalize the mental. Because I’ve always been ashamed of the physical me and I never learned to accept her. So even though I can understand and befriend my mind, my heart and skin, to this day, have rarely seen eye to eye. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If your body doesn’t think you want it, it’ll do everything it can to change itself and make you hate it. I had to learn this the hard way. 

First, let me tell you about words. My life has been molded by the words of the people around me; I catch the words that people throw my way just like dogs run to catch a flying frisbee. Then I take these words and let them soak through my skin, seeping into my mind, where they tumble like laundry until they settle, dust mites eating my brain. 

Words are a double-edged sword–wield them carefully and you are able to convey the most complex concepts. So has civilization progressed because we learned how to translate the words of our communities into universal language. But words wielded without understanding the weight they carry also have the power to destroy, nay annihilate. Words are shaky foundations on which to lay our trust, because they are also magic. They vanish and leave you with nothing more than wishes instead. 

I have two favorite words. Bittersweet and beautiful. Bittersweet because I find the oxymoron amusing and the perfect balance that encapsulates the intricacies of…well, bittersweet moments. Beautiful because I’ve always loved reading mystery novels. Whenever I choose to open a mystery novel, I divide the book in half, and when I get to that leering centerpoint page, I pause and try to solve the mystery. I never get it quite right, but my guesses are also never quite far off either. The mystery of what made a girl pretty has always confounded me, and I couldn’t wait until halfway through my life to figure it out either. Pretty, I thought, probably meant something cursory, surface level, physical appearance and such. If that’s the case, then beautiful must lie in a realm outside that, or rather, within us. And by default, girls are taught that wanting to be pretty was something shallow–seeking beauty, inner beauty, should be the ultimate goal. And even though you tell someone, particularly growing girls, to just ignore their skin and look within, you also market to them standards you have set to measure their beautiful. 

So truly, if beauty is only skin deep, then I’d like to analyze how I see my own. I want to look at how the words that breached these unholy walls crept in through hidden crevices exposed in daylight; I want to write these words aloud and let them reverberate in your head like they did in mine for years and years; I want to either take all of these parasitic words and cleanse them from my bloodstream or let them embody me and consume me. 

These words are my dirty laundry and I’m finally ready to air them out to dry. 

My skin never fit me quite right. It drapes over my bones, a shower curtain that protects me from harsh weather. At least that’s what I always thought its sole purpose was, more functional and utilitarian than it was anything else. The truth was, I didn’t like how I looked and nothing could reconcile that. I’ve never liked pictures or videos or that sort of thing. Because staring at my face meant staring at all the imperfections that patched me together. 

I wish my skin were my own. So I could have a choice and choose to stop it from changing. I don’t want to have to keep hiding behind masks; I want my skin to be mine. Because everything is spinning out of control and I don’t have any control.

My hair always had to be tied up, exposing my face. 

Jesus, do you see all the pimples on your face? Do you even wash your face or are you just pretending to? I can’t imagine how dirty and unhygienic you must be to let yourself look like this. Aiyah, your smile looks so fake. Do you look at yourself in the mirror and ever practice? You should get that mole next to your mouth removed, and those freckles under your eyes make your face look blotchy. Your skin is uneven colors everywhere, why do your tans make you look so bad? How do other people bear to look at you and not say anything? 

I couldn’t wear sleeveless tops, because that was whorish. On the rare occasions I was allowed to wear something with a skirt, it had to fall past my knees. Otherwise, I was told, I wasn’t any better than someone who sold themself on the street. No nail polish, and only small, inconspicuous earrings, if I had to wear earrings at all. V-necks were too slutty, and because I had a long neck, they probably wouldn’t look good on me anyway. Truth be told, people didn’t even see much of my skin for many years but most didn’t seem to like the little they did. 

The outside world, I was told, was a cruel, unforgiving place that would pick me apart for any reason it could use against me. So I had to be seamless. Perfect, or as perfect I could be, for how ugly they said I was. 

I really tried. The second I had the chance to reclaim my skin, I changed the way it looked. I couldn’t leave my apartment without precise eyebrows and sharp eyeliner. I hid behind pretty, shiny accessories because I thought they would distract from my skin. I picked out clothes I thought would look good on me, and not always because I liked them. When I went home, I lived a different life and looked like how I used to. So even if I didn’t dress or look the way I did at other places, I still certainly wasn’t myself. 

It never occurred to me that any of these things were choices I could make for the sake of myself. No, these felt like necessities for others to accept me in my skin. Or else they’d revoke their permission for me to belong and I’d be left alone. I spent a lot of time growing up alone in that house, so trust me when I say that loneliness can drive someone mad. To hold onto my diminishing sanity, I did everything I could to avoid that non-option. The masks I wore slowly latched onto my skin, but even they weren’t strong enough to keep words out. 

I wish my skin were made of steel. So it wouldn’t bruise so easily. So people can’t see so obviously when it does. So when the blood seeps from underneath the surface, I can quickly blot away the pain and pull my sleeve down before anyone notices. 

One of the first things therapists do when they broach the subject of self-harm is why you do it. It’s hard to provide a straight answer. Sometimes, feeling the physical sting of the blade takes you away from the internal ache for just a second, a second to recalibrate the funnel of thoughts sucking the air from your lungs. In that split second when time is still, the physical and mental worlds collide, staring each other down. Sometimes, your mind completely blanks because you’re watching you…hurt yourself. You know doing something like this doesn’t make sense, but depression and anxiety and borderline and PTSD don’t make sense either.

It’s safe to say that when you love someone, it’d hurt you to hurt them, right? But it never hurt me to hurt myself. The thing is, every time I felt the knife cut into me, I was the last thing on my mind. I was thinking about what people would think of me when they saw yet more fire burn lines on my skin. 

Always, there is immediate shame that boils to the surface. Neither the physical nor the mental world wins, because ultimately, you lose. I mean, you just proved the words they said about you right. 

Goodness, what happened to your arms? Don’t tell me you’re depressed or something like that. You know when people see something like that, they don’t pity you. They just want nothing to do with you. Why would you ever do something so fucking stupid to yourself? What the hell are you thinking? What the fuck goes on in your head? Does your brain work? Because those are on you forever which means everyone is going to stare forever. What, can’t handle words? You’re just like a carton of rotten strawberries. Easy to break and bruise. Are you going to cry now? Go ahead and cry and retreat into that stupid make-believe world in your head. Go hide because you can’t face reality and keep cutting because that’s all you know to do. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be seen around with someone like you?

Someone like you….someone like you….someone like me. 

I wish my skin were smooth like porcelain. But no, it isn’t. It is cracked pottery, charred after being forgotten in the kiln. I used to count the pores on my face because I hated how much I could see them in the mirror. So I drove myself crazy trying to count them so I wouldn’t have to focus on the rest of my face. Dermatologists say acne is caused by a combination of lifestyle habits, hormones, and genes. But somehow everyone else convinced me it was my fault, and it made me feel ugly. I watched my skin begin to crater at my cheeks, my forehead, my temples, chiseled by adolescent acne, punctured by the arrows zinging toward me. I listened to the voices pick me apart, digging into my flesh. 

I wish my nose was higher and that I had higher cheekbones, more angular features. I wish my eyes were bigger, tilted in some other direction, more exciting, a different color. I wish my hair framed my face better to accentuate the little attractive features I have. I wish my neck weren’t as long and that my teeth were straighter and whiter. I wish my feet didn’t have that bone jutting out and that my second toe isn’t freakishly longer than my big toe because of that ugly bone. I wish my skin didn’t have weird, discolored patches from when my nervous scratching made me bleed. I wish my torso were proportional with my legs…and every other part of me. Oh, how I wish. 

Yeah, well, you’re not exactly…you know, pretty but your personality’s great! And it’s the inside that counts. No, I don’t think you’re pretty to look at but at least I can talk to you, and at least I’m being honest with you, right? My last girlfriend was prettier than you. Bro, her? She’s ugly as hell. Why would you ever like someone that looks like that? God, so fucking ugly….There are way hotter girls and she doesn’t even come close. Yo, did she go to Mission Valley for elementary school…haha, cuz her teeth make her look like their beaver mascot?  Hey, Caesar! Yeah, you know, cuz your face looks like pizza. I guess getting good grades also means being a slut like you. You’re easy, and then someone can just throw you out when they’re done with you. Look at yourself.

I do. I am. There’s a reason why I don’t usually. You don’t have to point it out. I already know. Are you happy now? I’m looking at myself. I am. I am. I see what you see. Please just tell me why you hate the way I look. Can’t you see that I do already? Because I’ll fix it, I’ll do anything. Just tell me what to do so all of this goes away. 

It was hard to distinguish my own voice from the delusions from their voices after a while. 

I wish my skin were invincible. So I don’t have to care about scales and get fucked up to forget them. To this day, I refuse to buy a scale. I can’t even look at them if they’re in the bathroom. My gut response is so visceral. Scales make me want to gag. Because I remember what it feels like to stand on them, and I remember the power those small increments had over me. BMI, the ideal ratio between the hips and waist, how much the numbers fluctuated over time. I remember because even though I forgot, they reminded me. Over and over, logging down the numbers, cataloguing a single long Excel spreadsheet that reduced my health and existence to mere numbers on a scale. 

I used to lie about how much I weighed if it came up in conversation. It sounds silly to say that now, but that’s how much the numbers meant to me. I thought I wasn’t normal, wasn’t healthy. I obsessed over them. I’m 5’4” and I think I’m around 130 pounds. I can’t tell you for sure…because I don’t own a scale. Also because I don’t think it matters now.

But dear God, it really used to. The way my body looked was a direct reflection of the way I thought people saw me. As my skin ebbed and flowed against my skeleton, I drove myself insane because the words. just. wouldn’t. stop. If I thought someone didn’t like me, if someone I loved left, if I felt abandoned, I took it out on my skin. 

Because if your body doesn’t think you want it, it will do everything to self-destruct. Like depression has its ups and downs, so did my relationship with food. For weeks on weeks on weeks, I’d flee to the bathroom after a meal, hunching over the toilet bowl, hearing the gaping water taunt me. I convinced myself it wasn’t just in my head–my body just couldn’t physically keep food down. So my insides heaved and extorted the supposed poison inside me. Meal after meal flushed down the drain, wasteful, so so wasteful. There was an empty hole where my stomach was supposed to be, and the hole grew bigger and bigger until it gaped like the toilet bowl in front of me. 

I never really felt better after I left the bathroom, but I thought that was the way it was. You’re not supposed to feel better after you throw up an entire meal, especially if the meals are consecutive. You know better than anyone else that the reason you’re throwing up is to forget that you’re feeling anything. You just want to be numb, because feeling empty, feeling like nothing, is better than what you actually feel. 

Are you fucking STARVING yourself now? Who do you think you are? People are actually suffering in this world. People don’t have homes, people don’t have food to take home to their families at night. You should know better because you’re lucky. So goddamn lucky because you have everything you could’ve asked for and you’re still sick in the head like that. No one will think you look better because you’re pulling off stupid shit like this. No one will ever notice you. You are small and you aren’t worth anything. Are you hung up over some boy? Fucking idiot. So much bullshit from you all the time. 

Ooh, there’s some fat on you. Yeah, in your legs. Also you look like you’ve been gaining weight. Are you taking birth control? You shouldn’t, it makes you fat and it’s easy to notice. You know it’s not healthy to have fat around your waist like that, you should get rid of it. You’ll be thankful someone told you later because it means someone was paying attention when you weren’t. I mean, you don’t have much going for you in terms of your face so you might as well look out for your figure. No one’s saying you’re actually FAT, but you should watch your weight, watch what you eat. People can see and you should know better how to take care of your own body.

The feeling of being in your own body is excruciating when it’s not the body you want. It’s impossible to crawl out of your own mind because you’re stuck. So you drink to forget and smoke to escape. I doused the fire burning a hole inside me with alcohol, knowing full well that it would keep burning. So the days passed this way. Liquor stoking the crackling flames, smoke dissipating into the air. They tell you that the best way to prevent a hangover is to stay hydrated while you drink. The best way to bring yourself back to earth when you’re too high is to find an anchor to reality. The thing is, you know that water douses the fire and you know how to bring your feet back to the ground. So why don’t you do it?

Because…when I’m intoxicated, I’m not myself. I can talk, I can share, I’m a different me. I can eat, I can laugh, I can feel something better, something that’s not nothing. 

But also…what if I’m secretly hoping that the smoke dissipating in the air is actually a subconscious smoke signal for help? What if broken, alcoholic sleep is the only way I get to feel human and okay with my body? What if someone saw my body lying motionless, passed out on the couch in the middle of the day? Would they care how I looked, or would they care how I was feeling inside?

I wish someone would think my skin is beautiful. So maybe I could too. Maybe I could find a lifeline, an anchor to reality, a reason to stay. Anything. 

I hid behind people’s words. I wanted my boyfriends to tell me I was pretty because I didn’t think I was. I desperately sought out external validation because I couldn’t find any inside the empty void gnawing inside me. I concealed myself in the shadows of people’s kind words, but I didn’t actually believe they were true. I couldn’t bring myself to because I didn’t even believe in myself. I was barely staying afloat. 

I mean, I care about you as a human being because humans shouldn’t die, but other than that, I don’t care anymore about you. You just want words from people but life doesn’t work with just words. People can’t just tell you you’re beautiful and it’ll magically happen, okay?

I don’t think you’re trying hard enough to get better. Are you even trying? It feels like when anyone tries to help you, you push them away, so why would anyone want to keep doing that? If everyone is trying their best to help you, then don’t you see that you’re the actual problem? That kind of sick is something even pills can’t fix. Changing the way you look?! Why not change the way you think? Your brain is fucking sick. Stupid, idiot girl. You are worse things than just ugly. You are a worthless piece of shit, you are a burden to society. You can’t think for yourself and you can’t do anything right. You are a liar, you don’t deserve second chances. Who would ever want you, much less want to be with you?

I regret the day you were born. I hope when you wake up tomorrow morning and look me in the eyes, you can’t live with yourself because you should’ve been left for dead. You don’t deserve to live. If you ceased to exist tomorrow, I wouldn’t even blink twice. That’s how much you mean to me. Nothing. Because. 

YOU.

ARE.

NOTHING.

With time, my skin became my prison. Especially when I realized these words went deeper than just skin. These words weren’t just about the way I looked anymore. They were about me, a so-called human girl who didn’t understand why words hurt me even though they said only sticks and stones could. 

Sticks and stones may break bones, but words slash through skin and poison the brain. Because sticks and stones are physical things, you can see the pain they do right in front of you. Words are cages and they trick you. So you never notice until it’s too late….

I will be the first to admit that I was not strong enough to ignore all the words people have said over time. I was also not strong enough to keep myself from believing them. 

No one pushed me over the edge. I admit that I got there myself, because I believed those poisonous words. I didn’t have the confidence to trust that I wasn’t any of the things they said. Because I said those things to myself, too. I was the one that convinced myself these words were the truth. 

Do you want to know why I tried to kill myself? Honestly, I can’t tell you everything from the bottom of my heart because I still don’t fully comprehend why. But being me made my own skin crawl and I hated the shell I saw in the mirror. I hated that half-person. She wasn’t me. She was all the words that had built up, maggots digesting her skin. I didn’t like her. I wanted her to be anyone else. I really, really fucking hated her with every fiber of my being. So much so that after a while, I just stopped giving a shit.

They say the opposite of love isn’t hatred. Because it takes energy and anger to actively hate someone, and you even go out of your way to remind them of your hatred from time to time. No, the opposite of love is indifference. I knew because when I slunk back home at the end of the day and watched me shed my makeup and clothes and accessories, I was still empty. And I just didn’t care enough to do anything about it anymore.

Words are just words until someone gets hurt.

I had never learned to argue and stand up to my own words. So the night I tried to walk in front of a moving car, I gave up and let the words win. 

Drink to remember, drink to forget, 

Wishes pile up in never-ending debt

Great big monster in my head,

I cast away all the words you have said.

Skin like fire, made of ice,

I gave you away at a hefty price.

Wishes like coins in wishing wells,

Skin I thought I had to sell. 

Nah, the story doesn’t end there. I survived. In fact, the car didn’t even hit me, but my body still needed time to come out of the shock and figure out the trauma. 

At some point you realize that life is meaningless and pointless because we do all die in the end. So I guess in that wavelength, words are just the same. Words can be anything we want them to be, and that is why we are able to share them with our communities but mean so many different things depending on which words we choose. Like I said, words are magic. They have the power to transform, whether it’s the people around you, yourself, or into other words. The catch is that you have to be your own wizard if you ever want to wield them yourself. 

Words can be gas light to fuel the fire inside us, or words can be an olive branch between the skin and the heart. There’s a fine line between vanity and self-possession, and I was so worried about balancing on the tightrope. In my fear of scrutiny and other people’s words, I never even made it to the center stage of my own story.  

It’s difficult to heal the mind without reconciling its thoughts about the skin. Mental health tows the balance between the physical and mental world, so the body and brain truly go hand in hand. I grew tired of hiding in the shadows of other people’s words and I wanted to start using my own. After listening to the thoughts in my head, they all started swirling into a single monster, so I couldn’t even tell which ones were mine or someone else’s.

Being in quarantine sounded like hell at first. Stuck at home with four walls around me again? A recipe for depressive episodes, anxiety attacks, and severe claustrophobia. So I retreated into my own head and forced myself to really listen. With time, lots of frustration, and a strong dose of patience, I befriended the words I was saying to myself. 

The more I listened to myself, the more I understood the way I thought and processed feelings. The more I understood about myself, the more I wondered. The more I wondered, the more I wanted to repair the disconnect between my physical and mental worlds. The more I learned, the less I wanted to hide. 

I thought, if words are deadly enough to almost kill me, if words really are a double-edged sword, then imagine how powerful they would be in helping me heal and be friends with myself.  

This I know now. My words, my narrative. My words, my story. 

That’s when I started to see. I saw myself through a more focused lens, through kinder, more trusting eyes. If I made a mistake or fell down, I gave myself space, apologized, and forgave. And because I was willing to give myself grace, I was also willing to keep trying again. Scraped knees and skinned elbows don’t mean much in the long run if it means solving the mystery of self-acceptance. It didn’t even matter how people looked at me as I was recovering. What mattered was that I was slowly feeling lighter. I was less inclined to sleep in and avoid the day. I felt my heart grow and reach out. And something else, too. Something strange, flickering, almost there but I couldn’t quite grasp yet. 

The greatest gift we can give ourselves is choice. It is something we already have, but we have to allow ourselves to own our ability to choose. The moment I realized that I was not defined by the words people chose to give me was the moment I wanted to reclaim my own skin and cherish it. 

I realized that the happiest memories in my life are the moments I saw the people I love and care about happy. The times I get to share in someone else’s happiness are the times I feel the greatest joy. I wanted to share that feeling with myself. 

The hardest part is being ready for the cycle to begin. The beauty about human beings is that we are the cause and remedy to our pain, for ourselves and for each other. That’s what makes our stories so unique and that’s why I want to keep trying. To listen and learn from other people’s stories, to see what words they choose to define their experiences, to find out what words are important to them. 

Now that I’ve seen how words are weapons, I don’t want to use them to retaliate. I don’t resent the people who said all of the words, because in some twisted way, they have propelled my journey and forced me to reflect on how much hurt I was harboring inside. Saying this also doesn’t mean I’m a better person than everyone else or any more enlightened than before. I just know that I have my own flaws, as other people and I have pointed out, so I don’t think it’s fair to use people’s weaknesses and insecurities against them. I also know that I have not been the kindest to other people in my life, and I am sure my words have done the same as these words have done to me. So there is no reason to to fight back with harsh words, because that’s what made me hurt so much in the first place. Instead, I want to practice using words to remind the people around me of the value and joy they bring into my life. That way I can also practice those words on myself and learn to love myself the way the people in my communities do.

I only get to exist in this skin once, so why shouldn’t I try to find some beauty in it? Pretty. Gorgeous. Beautiful. All of these words were created to explain shades of meaning, which means that they are malleable. Because every person is different, and we are always looking for new ways to share the spectrum of our emotions with the people around us. There are so many words to choose, but I want to start using words for myself. You know that feeling I mentioned earlier, the strange, flickering one? It made my chest really uncomfortable because I didn’t know what it was. But I think there’s a human word for it that I had never learned to use for myself before. What I’m trying to say, in my usual verbose and convoluted way, is that I feel happy. 

I know this is a never-ending cycle and I know I will keep rising and falling with the words that surround me. I’ve been scared of this happiness for a long time, and now I know why. Because I’m scared it’ll go away. I am scared it will elude me later on. And truthfully, because I’ve never felt anything like it before and for years and years and years, I thought I would never feel it. So I want to pause for a moment today and give myself permission to enjoy being alive. Just to ease my paranoia, just in case I start to forget. I see now that I was scared of being happy because I couldn’t find the words for it. It just took my breath away. 

I don’t want to let other people determine the way I see myself. I also don’t need any of their words to make me feel better about the way I look. This skin is my own and I get to decide what words define it. I refuse to spend the rest of my life chasing down external validation for flickering satisfaction. I believe now that happiness exists and I believe I should, too. I wish I didn’t have to gamble with my life to learn all of this. But at the end of the day, I’m just glad to be here so that I can tell you this now.

I want to share my skin with you so you can see the script that’s scrawled all over it. I haven’t been able to find all the words to explain every hair, every blemish, every crater, every scar, every line, every single part of the ugly and beautiful that spells out my existence. But I’m not in any rush, because I want to savor every word I choose. I want to be here, living in the present, and take my time choosing so I can let myself breathe. My life will not be measured by the words other people give me but by the words I believe best tell my story. 

I like being friends with myself because today, I am ready to look at my own reflection in the mirror, and not just in a metaphorical way. I used to see this ghost looking back at me, so broken and confused, gaping holes in her skin. I used to see someone with terrifying, barbed wire scars running up and down her arms, someone plain, someone falling apart. But the girl I see now is more than just the sum of her organs. The girl I see is resilient, stitched together many times over for every time she fell. The girl I see is a work of art that has weathered the test of time and endurance. The girl I see is unashamed of herself and no longer wants to change the skin she was blessed with at birth. The girl I see wears her skin proudly because it is magnificent for the world to behold. And when the girl I see smiles that crooked, left handed smile, my heart is smiling back. 

It’s nice to run my fingers along my arms and not feel the raised wounds like Braille. Because scars aren’t something I can be blind to–they’re in plain sight. I had to decide how I felt about them, so I chose to love them. When I did, I felt the holes begin to mend. Now I see that I really was just missing a me-shaped hole in my heart, so I patched it up with some of the skin I’ve shed over the years. I don’t need my body to be perfect. I just need it to be mine. 

Today, my life begins again. I give myself this second chance to keep trying and learning. To keep feeling happy, knowing that even if I fall, I’ll be there in my corner. After running away from myself for so long, I know most of my usual hiding places. But I don’t really plan on running away anymore, which truly is a happy revelation. So who fucking cares if I’m missing a ring or my eyebrows aren’t done? I know I don’t.

Today, I feel beautiful inside and out. None of my wishes really came true, and my skin is neither invincible nor smooth. But it doesn’t have to be because I am strong enough to look myself in the eyes and tell the girl I see that she is precious and so, so beautiful.

For every single person that believed in me when I didn’t and lit the way in my darkness. For every word that helped me get here. For me, my skin, my body, my mind, I am truly thankful.

Because today, I’m ready. For the first time in my life, I finally feel whole. 

If words are magic, then wishes are dreams,

So much more than words make them seem.

If you dream hard enough, wishes come true,

But not if you wish for skin that’s new. 

Skin of dreams, weary, iron skin of mine,

For what it’s worth, you turned out fine.

So patchwork skin, I set you free,

I love you now as I do the rest of me.