skin builders

 

Skin builders cannot hold grudges or move mountains, they cannot weep at the drop of a hat, or warm to electric fences. Skin builders must use their life to graft to smooth over worn out paths with a trowel, and wait for the blood to dry. Skin builders must be sane, alive and apparent, their eyelashes must not blink out of turn, their hands must not reject what repels their minds, they must understand each murky tunnel as it strikes them blind. They must have hearts of putty and close their minds, they must walk on the fringes of daylight, they must slave on the terminally hopeless, they must waste away as their charge is consumed, they cannot seize gauntlets or smile unwary smiles, they cannot love indiscriminately or hope to be appeased, they cannot watch for signs or wait for goodnesses to pour in, they cannot shape sand or repel water. They can only hope that life sometimes takes away all the knowledge it gave, they can only hope that some kindness will return with their skin sometimes