@Zoe_Zoe

Peeling skin is a lot like peeling paint.Sometimes it chips, sometimes it comes off in one big piece. I've been peeling a lot. Physically, yes. But also mentally. Each dead piece I peel off reveals a new layer. Fresh, new skin. It feels like a new me. Like old experiences are removing it's talons and letting me go. It's refreshing. I want to peel it all away. My nails lift the skin and my fingers delicately remove it, letting it follow its own path willingly. And when it's done, I throw it away, admiring the new skin that's flushed a pretty red.It feels like a new me is coming out of its shell. Is this what it's like to heal? It's different than before. It's not like the other times where I've sown apologies into my heart, or kissed forgiveness into my very being. It's not like when I cried everything out of me until I felt numb, taking a personal journey to walk through the once dead garden I now tend to. This is different. It feels like I'm scrubbing the old me off, and becoming a new person, full of more love than I once was. There's a lot less hate. I like that. I like not being filled of hate. It makes me feel lighter.A lavender dies and a daffodil blooms in its place, letting me admire each pedal. It's so weird. Everything that happened feels like it happened in a pass life. I really am meeting a new person. A honeysuckle bush has started to bloom its buds, and I'm ecstatic to have such a beautiful bush in my garden. It's new, as I've never had one before. However, it reminds me of such good things, I can't help but cry. My hands tend to it, careful as ever. So many new things fill my garden, the sun feels brighter. A new flower greets me; a larkspur. I've never seen it before, but it feels right. It feels like it is entwined with my soul so deeply that I am overwhelmed with the feeling of being seen; of being known. It feels like home.When all the shedding skin falls off of me, I feel new. Soft, and tender, and new. I'm ready for my skin to crease and wrinkle with new experiences. I'm ready for my hands and feet to grow new callouses that have shown that I have walked a thousand roads and a thousand terrains. But right now, I think I can sink into the steaming water of a hot spring, letting my skin stay soft and tender for awhile. I deserved it, I think.After all, I take pride that my soul still bursts with love and kindness no matter how many times it's been cracked. I'm going to hold my own being close for awhile, and give it the love that it deserves. Because I do deserve to be loved. I want it, therefore I will give myself it. I will run my own fingers through my hair and smile at how my nails cause goosebumps along my skin. I will kiss my own worn knuckles to show how much I appreciate how soft my fingers can be. I will soon one day look in the mirror, admire all the pretty scars I wear, and grin as I say;"You did it. You made it. I love you."

Sinking fangs of greed break the soft skin on my shoulder, crimson blood trickling out of the wound and filling the mouth of the beast. It fails to cease its terror; the hunger for more staining its chin with my blood. The copper taste soaks into its taste buds, the desire to be filled screaming louder than any choir. Greed sing’s its symphonic tune, urging each claw to dig into the pale pink flesh that covers my body. Selfless organs spill out like water from the gashes in my stomach, soaking the flowers around me and staining them with a blood so red it looks black.Selfish eyes rake over my gnawed body, flickering with rage at how ruined my gentle hands are. Righteousness grips my wrists and pulls, forcing the sturdy skin to snap. Wailing pleas and cries leave my kind lips, however guilt rips my vocal cords out, leaving the belly of my throat open to prickly thorns that slice through the ruby flesh and opal bone. I choke up on my own sugar sweet blood yet passionate tears blur my vision and leave me blind to the beast.Tactless injuries litter my decaying body, my considerate bones mulled by uncaring teeth. The beast is self-serving, dining on my bounteous heart with malice. It does not care that benevolent lungs are failing to catch their last gulp of compassionate air. The beast is heartless and cold blooded as it engulfs my being. And when it is finished, it wipes my accommodating blood on its callous napkin. Abrasive eyes find their way to a mirror, only for fear to shatter it. For when the beast looks into the mirror, it finds not a beast.But myself.My own guarded fangs will end up biting my own loving hands.

My head rests on your lap as gentle hands cup my face, soft thumbs circling my cheekbones. I don't know who you are, but I have come to melt at your touch. I know it's not real, but stars, how I crave for it nonetheless. It feels warm and fuzzy, like the breeze of spring.Salty tears run down my cheeks, and yet I can feel your delicate fingers wipe my tears away; yet my tears are still there. I do not know who you are. Yet your delicate touch feels like home. It completes my soul, I swear it does. It doesn't feel so broken when you handle me with such care.Oh stranger, how I long for a touch like yours. I crave for hands that feel like home. Let me give you my broken soul so you can trace each crack so lovingly, and I can rest. I am so tired, stranger. I'm exhausted at the fight I keep having to put up just to survive.When I close my eyes, I am stranded. Water dances with sunlight around me, warming my face. I am adrift, lost at sea. I'm so detached from the world that others see me as some emotionless shell. It makes my soul ache. It longs for hands like yours, stranger.I long for a mother's touch. I want to know what a mother's love feels like. I imagine it like spring, when mother bears sluggishly stagger out of their dens, tiredly watching her cubs tussle and roll around in the fresh grass, damp with the last of the snow. It's cold, but they don't care. Their mother's embrace is warm enough for them.I feel like a little kid again. Crying out for my mother, for anyone, to love me like I was there own. I feel like such an ugly duckling. Aren't I worth the love? Aren't I someone to be proud of? Aren't I deserving of a mother's touch? I dream of a day where I know what a mother's touch felt like.It's so easy to be a little kid again. When the ones who broke me so bad looked like caretakers to me. When my not-father scooped me up from wherever one night as I pretended to be asleep, just to tuck me into bed.
It doesn't matter about the sour words I heard after.