the distraction in a fingerprint

i wish our skin held memories. imprinted like a tattoo you could brush over and remember. experience again. life is so four dimensional. it's sensory. and yet we only have one way to log memory, limited to language and mental recreation, always only half the story.

but what if we could feel it again? if our skin held onto those sensations. to look at your skin--this web of human experience--and feel it all over? veins bubble at the surface and skin frays in strange ways. but it's seen so much. it's felt so much. we can't remember it all--the first time you touched the velvet of a rose petal; felt an ice cube melt cold against your burning flesh; lit a match and watched the flame dance blue close to your fingers.

we can remember and recount, but it's our skin that has lived every memory. it holds them like scars until you can trace your whole existence across your skin and wonder at what it has seen.