Skin by Kirsten Benson
“The liver!” Sandy was smug with confidence. She read ahead. “That’s a close guess, but not quite right!” 1. Sandy sunk a bit in her chair. I can handle drunken sunburns from lazy “Is it the large intestine? It’s in the name!” hours on towels by the sea Joe was the MVP of the girls’ diaries. as long as you suffer with me “Good thinking, Joe, but that’s not it. Should through the next morning’s stickiness -I tell you?” Mrs. Harris’s feet hurt. aloe vera and Gatorade. “It’s the skin! The human body’s largest orYour bikini strap back gan is the skin.” is a livid red with new wings. The children were thunderstruck. The an2. swer was right in front of them all along. A tumblr post tells me to see my stretch marks Some laughed, some claimed balderdash as “rad lightning bolt tattoos”. and trickery, When they first struck and scattered themselves and one girl sat still, examining her shell with across my growing hips, new eyes. I saw them as gashes, vulgar wounds, An ordinary organ contained everything she a clash against space and time. knew as herself. Really they amount to a side effect She was an organ enclosing more organs. of a body morphing too quickly She was a science class factoid. and a young girl struggling to keep up. From then on, she preferred art class. 3. 6. Touch. Do cannibals prefer their cuts breaded or Goosebumps. marinated? Shiver. 7. Repeat. I wish lovers could leave marks like bruises 4. without violence. Not much is more jarring than the panicked exit No, not like hickeys. Like small specks of art. from the carnival Sky Ride. The August air Marks like signatures, reminders, tiny tathaving melded your thighs to the seat’s hard plas- toos. tic, 8. you are a bandage ripped from a knee You could wait seven years and flung tumbling back to earth. for all of your skin cells 5. to brush off and be replaced, “What is the body’s LARGEST organ?” asked but you will still Mrs. Harris. have to sweep them off of your floor.
by ollie they
15