xifeng | When I Grow Up, I Want to Not Have This Problem Anymore

Dear skin,

Would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to please, please, please retain the moisture that I go to such pains to put in you? Please? I read Allure religiously. I try not to spend too long in the shower, although daily showers for me are not negotiable. I make sure to butter you with emollients after I get out, while your pores are still open. I quit smoking two years ago. I moisturize, despite my doomed quest to find a moisturizer that performs as advertised. I am on the verge of covering you with Crisco every night, even if my sheets do get all greasy.

I don't LIKE waking up in the middle of the night to claw at you and then getting up in the morning to wonder why there's blood under my fingernails. I don't LIKE the constant and indecorous need to scratch. I don't LIKE flakes. Remember when I was a little kid and I screamed bloody murder because you thought it would be really funny to develop seborrheic dermatitis and everything hurt me, including my pajamas?

And then if moisturizer gets anywhere near you, even if it says NON-COMEDOGENIC on the bottle, you scream and immediately sprout blackheads. This is ridiculous and must stop immediately, even if I do derive near-orgasmic joy from gouging blemishes. (Yes, I know not to do that, but I feel like I've won a moral victory when I get the embedded one that hurt like fuck.)

No love whatsoever,
Lee

PS: If I were going to have descendants, I would genetically engineer them to be a race of skinless uber-classicists.