Through this skin
Like a shell, a thin elastic canvas stretched over the entire universe of our presence. Our defense, our interpreter, our skin. Without it, nothing. We are what it is, a dam, a permeable, adaptable dam. Thanks to it, we can move in the dense atmosphere of matter. The skin informs us, warns us, seems to know everything even if, for what it is blind, deaf, and dumb, it does not show any modesty, leaves it to other organs to perfect our teaching. We forget it? It is because, through these openings that it has left gaping, the universe seems to us so magical. It is not surprising that we have relegated it to the role of a docile slave. It looks so stupid.
We believe it to be a problem, it is the first one we accuse, that we hide; we constantly wash it, because it drools, it sweats, it gets dirty from what we expel. It is also not always in the right place, cares little about constraining our sedentary lifestyle. It prevents us from going beyond the body.
This prison is starving us. That is why, perhaps, we like to drink so much from the skin of others, that we seek, instead of tasting our own saliva, to drink what evaporates from those perfumed leathers that are, we believe, more so than we do.
Let’s close our eyes. Let’s plug our ears. Let’s pinch the nose, squeeze the lips. Everything stops, contained in a cauldron of flesh. We can cut our eyes out, pierce our eardrums, we will survive, and the skin will guide us. For oxygen, food, and water, it is of no help. At least, that’s the way we see it.
And we can laugh at these sentences. All this is not true. Dermatologists will tell us. Since there is neither spirit nor matter, since there are not many speeches, but only one conversation, there is only us, miraculously us, locked up, well warm, in our suit. Without this skin, there is no travel, no experience. It takes a ship to discover the horizons.
The slightest crack, the slightest redness, the slightest sweat, dryness, the most subtle itching resembles the crust of this planet. On our skin can be seen as the geology of our existence. Our stress drains it dry, our anguish inflames it, our desires hallucinate it, our desires make it adulterous and wild.
It is so true that we hide it because it cannot lie, it seems vulgar to us, never at the level of what the eyes, ears, and mouth thought they tasted of others. However, when we are tired, when we can no longer tolerate it, we slip underwater to give him back his foetal dreams, we abandon ourselves to the hands of the masseurs, we abandon ourselves by keeping silent the hearing, the taste, the look to finally let the touch unfold its countless antennas, to give it back its voice and power.
There is no real meditation except that which touches the epidermis. Perhaps this is the only true knowledge we have. There is neither love nor truth, without caress. Tenderness, we leave that to the intellectuals.
When you get out today, when you will take the subway, when you will get to the office, when you will meet people in the street, forget their looks, rather concentrate on their skin, which cannot lie. Then go back to their eyes. Calculate the differences. Mathematics will surprise you.
