Every day is a surprise; sometimes you'll wake up in a great mood and other days you'll wake up and immediately wish you never did (that day, or ever, depending on how bad it is.)

You can try to hide it but then you'll get angry. Frustrated. Why can't anyone see I'm on the verge of ending it? Do they not care? Do they want me to? I bet they want me to.

What if they do see? Will you feel ashamed? Defensive? Will you break down and cry and beg for them to not go, just stay, and just let me cling to you a bit longer? Will you lie? If they believe your lie, what does that say? Are you a good liar or are you not worth deeper concern? Back to being angry, I guess.

Don't you feel guilty for being angry? You know, not everyone's a mind reader. Is it worse if they know and don't care? Or if they just are oblivious?

And sometimes they ask you why you're feeling so bad but you don't know. Maybe you know. Is it something in your head? Did you stare at their shadow long enough for it to grow teeth and bite you? Are you using their likeness in your head to torture yourself with sick, involuntary fantasies where you lose everyone? How many people are you using as unknowing actors in your self-destructive fantasy? Do all of them matter? Do you? And is that your projection or reality?

Or maybe something innocuous. Is it worth telling? Do you sound crazy or mean or unreasonable if you say it out loud? Those words taste bitter in your mouth so maybe you should just swallow them. After all it's not something anyone normal would be hurt by. It's hard living when you have no skin. That's what it feels like. No skin, just exposed veins and muscles. Wind feels good to everyone else but to you it stings. Maybe that's why you always want to wear someone else's skin. It's safe and warm, and you'll never be lonely again.

Can you tell them that? Can you look at someone and ask if there's room for two beneath their skin? If they unzip their skin from throat to belly and let you step inside, is it out of pity? How long can you nestle in there? Are you a part of them or are you just an overgrown parasite? Parasites have brains and hearts so maybe you're more like an abscess or a teratoma. Don't people usually cut teratomas out?

It's scary to even think about but you try not to cry or shiver because the funny thing about living inside someone's skin is they'll feel your erratic breathing as you sob or the way your body quivers like you're about to have a seizure. How do you even broach that? "I know I just got here but please promise me I can live this way forever." But by speaking the very concept of being evicted from this new haven, you're giving it credence, so even if you were tactless enough to ask such a loaded question, it's too heavy for your tongue to lift.

Nobody else can unzip their skin like they can. Nobody else's skin would be so warm and inviting to live beneath, either. So maybe you just bite your tongue until it bleeds to keep yourself from crying.

Maybe they notice anyway and ask you why you're so afraid and you have two options here: confess or deflect. Do you confess to them that paradoxically, feeling this much comfort, finally being able to exist alongside someone, has frightened you into paralysis? That you feel as if you've broken and entered your way under their hypodermis? What if they altruistically blame themselves and peel your muscles from their own and toss you out to fend for yourself again? What if the very question is insulting to even ask? "Do you think im that kind of person," you might hear, and you can't figure out how to tell them no, you don't, but you're just so afraid.

You should probably deflect. It's safer. "I'm sick, I'm just tired, my head aches, I've been using again, my mother is unkind to me, the sun rose in the west today and not the east, my horoscope told me I'd have tremors today." Lie, lie, lie. Maybe they'll accept it or maybe they'll know but not pry. Do you want them to pry? What if they get angry?

It's the end of the day and the sun rises by the time you manage to exhaust yourself because whenever you rest your degloved cheek against their beating heart, you're terrified you'll wake up to silence, skinless and alone.