The Other Side Of My Skin

By Devalacheruvu Ridhima

The pale peach wan of my palms,

Perfectly contrast the burnt tan tenor of my hand.

With my overgrown nails, leaving rapes of red over my radian,

Over those hideous veins, purple and green popping over my wrist,

How I hate them all.

Thighs speckled and marred like a smallpox ridden child

From picking scabs and wounds time and time again,

Till they bleed to stain my shin; till they sting and hurt.

And they’ll cripple me to cover my legs till they heal again, only to start anew.

How I despise them all.

Face and tone, rough and uneven,

Like a mountainous terrain covered in valleys and canyons,

Through pustules and pores, oozes out pus and gunk.

With specks of black and white splattered over the bridge from eye to eye

How I loathe them all.

Hair grows with a ghastly girth at the place where my arms join my clavicle,

Like an untamed jungle, its sight which is repulsive.

The rolls of portly skin which fold every time I am seated,

They fill me with a shame, for the world to bear witness and see.

How I abhor them all. 

Broken parts, some those aren’t too hideous to view,

All put together, form a cacophony of a sight.

Mangled like a corpse strewn together after being ripped limb to limb,

It is almost as though you can see the seams,

Where the threads were passed and I was stitched in place again.

This broken once; glued together countenance of mine,

Oh, how I love to hate it all.

By Devalacheruvu Ridhima