Written in the second person, "Skin" speaks to someone who has been harmed by a man ("everything he did to you"). The poem never says exactly what happened, but the imagery of scrubbing until the skin is raw suggests a violation that leaves the victim feeling dirty and ashamed. The speaker's voice is blunt and relentless, almost like a verdict handed down, and it may be addressing a past self or another survivor.
The feeling is one of being stuck. Washing can't remove memories, which come "right back up" during sleep. The wish to "crawl out" of one's skin and become something "perfect" shows how badly the person wants to start over. The final stanza shuts that hope down with three flat statements: never clean, never escape, never forget.
The mood is bleak, heavy and claustrophobic. The short lines and repeated "you will" create a sense of dread, as if the pain is a sentence with no end. There is little comfort here, only the raw honesty of trauma.