I don’t remember much from before but I’ll try and put it down in case I forget again. I was in front of the mirror, putting on that face-paint. I wore it on the skin. I was going to go out for that again because that’s what I did.

I was painting myself and there was a ripple. A ripple in the cover, in my skin. I followed it and parted my coat and it was there starting at the base of the horn. A scar or line or stitch. It ran down my neck, my head. Straight, swollen, purple and tracing down the front of my head and it rippled up a bit.

There was a loose part. I pulled and it slid off - my skin, sliding off my face and I couldn’t stop myself from pulling it. It was wet beneath and warm inside and once it came loose it all sloughed off. I couldn’t keep it on anymore and I pulled on it and it slithered off and there was the inside part. It was dead-gray and glistening and veined and clay and it was my inside part. The skin was  gone and I tried to put it back and forget again, but I started remembering.

I remembered from the first where I wriggled in nothing as a thought and I remember after when I was pulled into the cold and kept in the clay. I remember after that where I was wrapped in warm and wet and told to feel and forget and imagine-remember untruths. And I remember after when I made them feel warm because that’s what I felt and I made them warm and spoke and painted my face.

But now I know my castle is crumbling and not hers. I know my skin has fallen off and isn’t hers. What I think and thought I remembered isn’t hers and I don’t know much else except that they were scared when I made them warm and i’m sorry i’m sorry