My Skin Tells the Story (Le Voir N. Lewis

Not tattered nor torn by standards of normal bruises,

just wrinkled, singed, and coarse.

An unsettling, yet prudent roadmap blended into soft chocolate

grooves in which I blithely endorse.

Years of lingering soreness, a phantom discomfort,

that would forever imprint beyond a physical scar.

A mesh of serpentine and smooth pathways of soft caramel hues

often leaving me in admiration, “Maybe I am bizarre.”

Quivering with spasms, I gaze at the skin that covers my thighs,

the cinnamon patterns of polka dot and lace.

Skin that transformed and moulded my hands,

ensuring the skin on my fingers would stay in place.

Faced with many questions about the texture of my skin,

My pale white palms and how the patterns on my arms swirled.

Ears and face covered in clubbed knots.

A misfit amongst a normal world.

The fire burned and the smoke consumed,

and before my four-year-old eyes, life was a flash.

Yet the fire burned, and the steam ravished,

but my body didn’t fall under the ash.

Time didn’t stop nor stand still in the fire,

as my body was enveloped in agonizing pain.

For God, my death wasn’t on the agenda for that day.

It was surviving. In the Land of the Living, where I would remain.

My skin is a priceless tattoo, a history of the events I have encountered in life.

I am a walking rainbow of different hues and skin tones.

The protective covering, I call my skin is telling of my brightest of days,

and the darkest hours when I felt alone.

Nothing from the past would predict what happened to me.

No crystal ball or prediction to aid in what one could foresee.

What matters now is that I am a Phoenix soaring,

scorched, proud, and beautifully blemished. My skin tells the story.