Help! My Pores Are Breathing

Your alarm goes off at exactly 7am. After telling yourself that 5 more minutes wouldn’t hurt, you finally drag yourself out of bed, shuffling your way into the bathroom. You flip on the light switch and walk up to the sink. You splash some water on your face and look in the mirror. Just a glance. Then you pause. Wait. Wait. What is that? You lean in closer. The bathroom light provides a harsh spotlight, exposing every secret your face has tried to keep. You tilt your head, trying to see what you’re looking at from a different angle. What is it? Is it a line? A wrinkle? No. Oh, no, it’s worse. Way worse. It’s the texture. You reach up to your face and you feel it. Immediately, a sudden dread comes upon you. Your eye starts to twitch upon realization. There’s a bump right there —red, angry and pulsing under your skin. Your breath hitches as you look at the small sebaceous mountain that wasn’t there last night. My skin is breaking out. It’s breaking out. It’s. Breaking. Out. The mantra starts in your head, a frantic, scratching record. You scramble for the magnifying mirror you bought at the store the other day. The one you swore that you’d throw away because it makes you insane. But here you are, dragging it out of the bottom drawer like some junkie looking for a needle. You stare into the mirror. Your pores look like deep, dark, endless voids. You can see it staring back at you, mocking you. And that’s enough to make you panic. Your skin isn’t glass anymore. It’s now a rough, peeling wall. You start picking at it. Just that little whitehead on your cheek. You start with your fingers then quickly move in with your nails. You feel the sting and that satisfying pop. But it starts to bleed, and swell. Now it’s a wound and a scar in the making. You stare at it for so long that tears start to well up in your eyes. You scramble through your drawers because you think the “acids” will help. You feel the tingly burn of AHA/BHA and retinol. You layer and layer till your skin barrier is desperately screaming for mercy. But you can’t hear it…the mania is louder. Perfect skin. You want perfect skin. You need perfect skin. Glass skin. Poreless skin. Skin that doesn’t exist. Now you’re panting hard, staring at the raw, red, textured disaster in the mirror. You realize you’re making it so much worse so you do the only thing you can do. You put on an armor. You put on enough foundation and concealer to cover it up then go in with the tiny little heart emojis and stick them right over the “texture.” A manic little shrine to the delusion. You look at yourself in the mirror and smile. But it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Now I’m perfect.” You whisper to the glass. But you can still feel the bumps breathing underneath your skin. And you know that they’ll be right there the second you wash your face tonight. You let out a shaky breath and the tears you were holding back finally spill over the textured skin you hate so much. You keep staring at your reflection — at that angry, irritated and human skin. And then you see that that’s all it is.…skin. You don’t have to love the texture. You don’t have to flaunt your pores but you can’t keep picking at your skin like a wound that deserves punishment. You can take care of your skin without trying to violently fix it. You’ve been trying to be glass for years. But you don’t have to be glass. You’re human and humans have texture. So lean in closer to the mirror and give me a smile. One that crinkles your eyes and moves the texture on your cheek. Now say, “I’m perfect” and this time, you better believe it.

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