My skin has traveled. I’ve walked with her under the guidance of many hands and through the meadows of many sinking, breathing bodies. I learned her name there; how far she stretched and where we – her and I – began.

I’ve been young and I have sprouted into my body. I have been bluntly sewn. “Don’t tell your family,” in my head before I knew I could bleed for the sake of being fertile, lush.

My hips found their way into hands as my mind threw itself further away from the whole of my flesh. It was the hands of men who kept me from her. “You’re beautiful.”

I do not blame them.

Sometimes they took my skin and wore it for themselves. Sometimes I showered them in every inch of her because, “I love you.”

I do not hate them.

It’s been many years that I spent beside her – my skin. Until the day that I decided to shut myself up, become small. Become a point, a wrinkle. So small my bones turned to dust and my breath was all but silence.

It was the same day that sunlight first truly hit me and sank into my pores and made me feel something like home. I stood up that day.

I said hello to her, my skin, and she smiled. Now, I know her; I love her.

What a heavy love she is to bear, my skin.