Like Skin but Inside

It's funny that the skin is what's seen,
measured, quantified, tolerated
but not the lungs that breathe fire
from behind clenched teeth,
viced in the hot, flushed anger
of a cursed child. Or that heart,
that thump-step heart
stamping blood seals
on every spat syllable,
impossible to temper.
But the skin,
the skin never knows
why this is,
never meets a single molecule
nor lines up in semi-formal
family photographs.
The skin simply knows
that tears sometimes spill.