Palisade Skin

• Ingrid Taylor, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2016

The reflection of my physique in the mirror reveals my palisade skin, memorised as something I’ve never admired. My skin gives me a ghastly flaw, seen as an individual who is not perceived as an eminence?w?ho is slightly bronzed like a wide array of different individuals.

There has never been a once upon a time where I have by no means cherished my skin, no matter what my mother declares. Freckles appearing, the sun exposing its power of dominance to what was once acknowledged for its supremacy for the responsibility of sunburning and skin cancer. All in one, I am more bare to this toning part of the solar system we like to call the sun; the physical attribute which gives this earth its colour; than any other identity whose skin the sun ripens with colour. Most of the luminous days of the year for me comprise of sunscreen, bearing in mind that I am more exposed and vulnerable to the quality of radiation which flies high in the atmosphere; sunny or cloudy.

Attraction to fair skin isn’t as common compared to darker tones. Feeling as though your skin separates yourself from this society we call reckless, defines where you stand amongst others in conditions of various relationships, whether it may be friendship or a love relationship. This society sets out certain standards of which one must follow in criteria of personality, but for most part, physical features. I know I don’t stand amongst those, whereas knowing my palisade skin isn’t enough to make the cut; why I feel so invisible.

*Second POV*

What I always hoped was that one day, she would find her solace in my listening ear. Her palisade skin was all that kept her a unique, peculiar individual amongst millions of the human race with a gloomy tone. Her skin is as authentic as different shades of bronze put together; her freckles of contrastable shades mixed around the uncovered parts of her body.

As she steps into the dispersed streaks of light, for a moment, she is flawless. Completely unblemished of freckles, she glows like the shine of angel wings, her blue eyes dazzling as bright as the profound, alluring ocean, like how the water crashes the banks of the rocks on a hot summer’s day. One day, when she’s grown up, her skin is going to be so beautiful.

One day, maybe, she will realise someone will love her for her skin, and she will be proud of the skin she’s in.

*First POV*

A magic sign pops into the bottom left hand corner of the mirror every time my eye sets itself onto my reflection, reading 'reflections in this mirror may be distorted by socially constructed ideas of ‘beauty’.?This must be my conscience, something so ghostly, pushing me to be something extraordinary, teaching me dwelling on my looks won’t change anything.

As the sun glows through the windows, I am for a moment the only thing perceivable in the room. Foggy beholded, just me, my shadow and all my regrets. The regrets of letting myself despise the skin I was born into, when none of us is responsible for the complexion of my skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath. T?here's a way in which I can look at clothing as my outer skin. And because I was discriminated against because of my complexion, the way in which I could overcome that was through the way in which I presented myself with my clothing. I am beautiful.

I am beautiful. My skin doesn’t determine my place in society. I, myself, take a stand in this society for the discrimination against whites. I will always be beautiful. Bold and brave. Maybe my palisade skin isn’t a bad thing after all.