A layer of skin flakes covers my bed like powdered sugar sprinkled over a piece of chocolate cake. It falls from my arms, my legs, my face like it is being poured from a paper bag into a mixing bowl. I run my fingers over my skin and search for blemishes, for tougher hairs, for imperfections of any kind. so I can scrape them with my fingernails. I pick them off like people crusted food being removed from plates that didn’t come clean in the dishwasher.

I do this for hours. I cannot stop. Bathroom trips take too much time because the presence of a mirror is too tempting, my bare thighs pose irresistible opportunities to expose my nails to skin usually covered.

Layers of hair cover my bedroom as if every surface was used like a brush. Air currents blow it around allowing it to find home in desk drawers and carpeted corners. I hold the bottom of my braid in my left hand and grasp the few strands that stand out from the cluster. The “flyaways” are removed like imperfections on my skin. I take this hair and wrap it around my finger, looping over and over again. The loose ends and extra strands are wrapped in the opposite direction to keep it together, tightly wound. These pill shaped clusters collect on the windowsill in a long row.

Sometimes I think about swallowing them, but this is easy to resist.

My legs… my arms… my face is covered in red freckles made out of tiny scars and scabs. My head has bald patches that are hidden by my blessed thick nest of hair. My fingernails are shrinking as bits of the pink nail bed are removed daily as I rip rows and rows of seemingly excess nail apart from that which remains attached to my hand.

I am afraid that my hairless patches will grow noticeably. I am afraid that my scars will never heal. I am afraid that my fingernails will disappear. But I cannot stop.

I cannot stop.

I cannot stop.