Feed me, Seymour!

This is a contrary post (considering some of my recent posts) nevertheless I will continue.

I sometimes get hungry.

This is not the regular appetite type of hunger, This is when my skin gets hungry. I have a skin hunger that needs to be fed. And what exactly can satisfy this desire?

Difficult question and complicated answer.

Some answers are best served with an illustration. Let me try that now.

One evening Heather suddenly felt isolated in the middle of a hotel. A pleasant group meal had turned sour and she was unexpectedly under attack. She became child-like in her response. Heather wanted to turn away and hide. She found a corner and began to cry. When she looked for comfort and reassurance from those close to her she didn’t receive any. The space around her grew wider. 

She was a long way from home where everything safe and familiar. Heather didn’t know that she was having an intense desert-like experience. She had felt the pangs before, now she was hit with the full hunger. She had skin hunger.

The person she had expected to touch her did not. That made the situation substantially more profound. As Heather tried to escape to her hotel room to ride out the pain there was a breach through her boundary walls. Someone reached out, with the softest gentlest touch possible. A touch full of genuine concern. The intensity of that continued touch was like an electric current buzzing through Heather’s skin. She knew it instantly and she dreaded it as well because it woke her up to the void that had enveloped her before that moment.

Heather was sated in that moment. She would never forget it.

So, sometimes I get hungry and I want to be fed. Unlike the Little Shop of Horrors I will not devour everything that is put before me. I have specific needs and desires. My palate is sensitive and peculiar. Even I don’t understand it, but I do know the correct nourishment for this skin hunger. I don’t plan to deviate from my diet again.

I’ve used this quote before and I make no apologies for using it again:

“Every relationship is reciprocal ... when you touch something it touches you."

Fringe, season 3, episode 11.