Granuloma annulare

Red, thickened rings on the skin. Circles that form slowly, raised and firm, enclosing a patch of seemingly normal skin — like a fortress around an empty centre. Granuloma annulare is medically benign, often painless, and for precisely that reason easily dismissed. Dermatologists speak of an inflammatory skin reaction of unclear cause. The rings come, stay for months or years, sometimes disappear on their own — and return.

But look at the shape. Your body is drawing rings. Demarcations. Walls that enclose something. Not wild, not chaotic — geometric, controlled, as though drawn with a compass. As though something in you were drawing a boundary and at the same time walling in what lies within that boundary. The question is not why your skin forms rings. The question is: what are you keeping enclosed inside you — and why does it not dare to come out?