One of my fellow students hates her skin. I don’t really want to go into the details. Her remarks shocked me, because as I listened, I realized how much I love skin. Skin has, to me, an almost magical quality. It is the barrier between my flesh and the world. My body produces it, churns it out on its cellular assembly line, and the world endlessly alters and destroys it. My skin is a canvas for sensation. My skin is the closest I will ever be to the earth, the air, the sky, and the sun. My skin is the closest I will ever be to another human being, and is the closest another person can ever be to me.