Someone has stripped the top layer of my skin ... an exercise ...

Someone has stripped the top layer of my skin. He was frustrated with what little he saw on the surface and wanted to see what lie beneath … only, after cutting through to the white meat, he found that he had reached to high in his curiosity. When the blood began to flow and would not stop, when I screamed in my agony, angst, wonder and passion at being so utterly exposed it was too much for him to bear. He found, underneath the surface, a life lived to exhaustion, but still unbelievably famished. He found, underneath the surface, unchecked, untested passion its blue flame searing his heart on contact. He found, underneath the surface, love, a love gone unanswered and unrequited for far too long. And beneath the love he found, underneath the surface, a frightened woman child trembling like a summer leaf who forgot to die before the bitterness of winter took hold. Someone … has stripped the top layer of my skin. This once frustrated, curios boy, now a frightened man holds my soul in shaking hands as he spins and spins on a world turning opposite his own rotation. He tries, in vain; to replace the pieces he has stripped from me, he cannot take the responsibility. Little does he know, he is not the first to try. Many have tried and failed, each carrying a piece of my essence ... bits of my soul, my tears, my blood, my life. None have possessed the constitution, none have had courage enough to stop spinning even for a moment so that I may find out what lies beneath … so that we might share, and be one. Thus, he continues to spin, he continues to flounder with pieces he stole leaving me less than me … broken, not whole, wholly lost, and inexorably cold.

Cheeks …