Skin is an Organ
Erin Murphy
Skin is an Organ
The thinnest skin is on the eyelid, just six-tenths of a millimeter, the slightest brushstroke hint of a winter sky. Back skin is fives times as thick, a pie crust refusing to rise. Who doesn't love the word sebaceous, how it whispers through your lips? Or loquacious, its fraternal twin? In junior high I knew a girl who smiled during idle preteen chatter. Her term paper on bravery was just 10 words: Bravery, she wrote, is turning in a paper that's one sentence long. She got an F from the teacher, but an A in my book. I – with my half-dozen nights at the library, a dime in my coat pocket to call my father at closing time – admired her. When she saw her grade, she tucked the paper in her notebook and lifted her chin the way people do when they wear confidence like a second skin. |
This poem is quite literally about being yourself. In this specific example of someone marching to the beat of their own drum, one girl out of the whole class decides to risk her grade in order to get a point across. The teacher flunks her, but she was the bravest out of the whole class. When she finds out being herself and risking so much didn’t pay off, she moved on. She put on her false confidence to protect her and simply moved on. When you are yourself in this world you are bound to be rejected, and the more and more you are rejected the harder and harder it is to love and accept yourself as the person you are. The narrator of this poem admired her bold move, but never told her. This could be the case in everyday life, the most brave and confident could be admired from afar, never knowing that their achievements were noticed.
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