A back is the one surface of myself I will never see — only others can.
SPARK
I lay still while a mould was taken from my back .. first in alginate, soft and cold, then a positive poured in plaster. I thought I was making an image.
When the mould was lifted, I felt small stings, and did not know what they were. Later, in the plaster, I understood. Hairs .. my hairs, pulled from me and left behind in the cast. To be recorded had taken something from me, quietly, and I only saw the cost afterwards.
Come in close, with a magnifying glass, and look at the surface .. the pores, and the single hairs still standing in them. From this close, it is clearly mine .. this skin, and no one else's.
Then take some distance again. The hairs disappear, the pores close, and it becomes only "a back" .. a step further, any back at all. Nothing in the plaster moved. Only you did. How close you stand decides how much of me you find. Like the moon over water, you change what you look at, simply by where you stand.
A membrane* is never a wall. It is a threshold that lets things through. The pores prove it .. small openings where the inside reaches the outside, caught here mid-passage. My skin was never sealing me in .. it was already letting me out.
Come closer. See how much of me is here .. and ask how close you must look before a surface becomes a person.
*A membrane is a thin, pliable layer that both separates and connects .. semi-permeable, letting some things pass while holding others back.