Skin

Sometimes
I'm driving down the road,
cars on either side of me
taking up too much space,
and suddenly a tightness grips me,
blooms in my chest and spreads
until I feel like my skin is five sizes too small.
Or maybe I feel like I don't have any skin at all,
because everything is raw
like no new skin ever grew --
no skin that knows how to miss you
and drive in straight lines, too.
It lasts long enough to make me wonder
if I should stay on the road,
but just when I'm about to pull off,
it recedes as quick as it came,
and I start to feel like I can trust my skin again,
and it gets me to my destination.
And then I start to think that maybe new skin
is growing in, after all,
because the air doesn't hurt so much anymore.
And I think that maybe I can do this,
maybe I can grow these scars,
maybe it's not as bad as everyone says,
and I let myself think about puppies
and periwinkle
and the square root of pi.
I let my mind wander in safe little circles
for whole minutes even,
but before I know it, the memory of a single eyelash
engulfs me and I can't breathe again.
And then I realize that there is no order to this,
there is no blueprint, no estimated time of arrival.
There is just me, on an endless road,
without my skin.