I Was Not Born With Thick Skin

By Mariyam

I was not born with thick skin.

Somehow, I never was able to develop it either.

Instead, I’m stretched out paper thin, the pores on my skin permeable to everything it experiences. Insecurity is turning up the volume to all the wrong things and I just happen to exist in every frequency.

I have mastered sensitivity or sensitivity has mastered me.

those jabs never meant anything anyway, I’d say, smiling.

I know I’ve been good at pretending all along.

but when I bleed, I cannot do it in silence, I must spill on the people around me.

look at my pain. hear my despair before I retreat. know that I am wounded but don’t watch me heal. Look at my weakness, look at my weakness I am a torn down tragedy, and I cannot even do sadness right. I have a million thoughts in my head but they’re rarely ever mine in origin. I will nurture every seed that you plant with the blood that you make me spill while you watch.

I have a taste for the self-destructive. You are by far the most delectable.

have mercy. please. have mercy.

By Mariyam