SKIN - creative writing (TW: mild body horror)

It looks into the mirror that you stare into for hours, picking, ripping, digging your nails into the flesh of your forehead, cheeks, nose, chin, temples. Tearing out, piece by piece, the filth that has accumulated below the blotchy red skin. Raw from your nails dragging across it endlessly, blood pooling from the now empty burrows that the disgusting pus had buried its way into the once clean, blemishless landscape.

It watches silently from the mirror, eyes half unfocused, half concentrated, as you pick, pick, pick, squeezing together layers of soft to see those maggots pop out, eyes gleaming in satisfaction every time it hits the mirror, staining it with more filth that your own body made, staining the slowly maturing, hollowing cheeks that have lost the childlike roundness they once had; now, covered in pinkish rough scars from how many times you've hoisted yourself up onto the sink, sat down within it with your bare feet dirtying the white porcelain, sat in front of the mirror too high for you to see in normally just to spend minutes, hours, ripping apart your face to get rid of the dirt.

It watches you stare silently at yourself once you're done, and hop off the sink to wet your face - first, hot water, then facewash, then cold water. To seal up the holes, you say, knowing damn well they'll be filled again eventually no matter how hard you try, how much you pick; they always will fill again, filthier, dirtier, ruining your flushed cheeks and blackhead covered nose with more and more.

Perhaps, until your entire face is one giant hole - one you squeeze the sides of your skull until the white snake pops out and splatters over the mirror, hiding those judging eyes. Its hateful, disgusted eyes, that watch every time you promise to take care of your skin better, you won't do it again. But it knows.

It always knows.

Its seen you do this countless times. Wipe down the mirror with a few squares of toilet paper to be flushed down the sink, then wash your hands.

11 seconds, on each part.

2 pumps of soap in each hand after rinsing your hands with boiling hot water. Palms, rub them together for 11 seconds. Backs of your hands, 5.5 seconds each, inbetween your fingers for 11 seconds, each thumb for 5.5 seconds, your nails for 5.5 seconds on each hand.

Then, scalding water again, until all the soap is down the drain, then dry your hands on the fluffy towel whilst ignoring the bubbling skin around your cuticles from how hot that water was. Hot enough to kill the filth, the dirt.

The toilet paper is flushed, and you wipe your hand again, getting rid of the filth. It's not enough. Again, 11 seconds on each part of your hand, 5.5 on each hand you can't do both of at the same time.

Then, you open the doorhandle to the bathroom. The metal feels filthy, rusted. Again, 11 seconds on each part of your hand.

Your skin burns.

It stops watching when you turn away from the mirror to leave the bathroom, now invisible.

But it always is there.

In the reflection in store windows. In puddles of water on a rainy day. In the glass door reflection at college.

Its eyes never stop picking you apart.

Unless you do first.