Tattoos

when i was younger, the prospect of having words or visuals inked on my body, engraved into my skin like the years of a life on a tombstone repulsed me. so what changed?

when i was younger, the prospect of having words
or visuals inked on my body, engraved into my skin
like the years of a life on a tombstone, repulsed me.

why would someone want that sort of a
forever? what if the person they just got tattooed the name of
in a thought bubble right below their collar bone,
beside the beating of their heart, just did not belong
there? what if they got their name changed?

 

at thirteen was when i saw someone getting one.

 

it was my elder sister at her seventeenth birthday.

 

as she got her skin etched by a guy wearing
liprings as if decoration was all he ever needed
his lips for, the only thing i could notice was the faint
ghost of a smile as she proudly stared at the mirror showing her
her shoulder blades. two weeks into that night
she stopped wearing full sleeved tee shirts and started sporting
off-shouldered tops for her music notes for everyone to spectate.

 

and at sixteen, i met you.

and you changed my everything.

 

my poetry transformed like a caterpillar
into a butterfly, your omnipresence in my heart
a cocoon for my words to finally grow in. when i hadn’t
met you, i could only write about the naked face of our
shameless society but now…

 

now my poetry held passionate words of love and
my metaphors weren’t of tombstones anymore.

we instantly clicked when we met and i think a part

of the reason why was that we were open to each other’s

thoughts and ideas, all we wanted was to soak each other’s

words into ourselves.

so you started listening to one direction.

and i started reading stephen king.

 

the first time i knew i wanted a piece of you

on me, with me, forever, was when you came up to me

with your hands in your pockets and those bulletproof,

intangible eyes, and you said, 
“you and i, baby, we’re perfect, and i’ve known this since

you gave me the best song ever to listen to, baby i can tell

it’s gotta be you by the little things that you do, baby one way

or another i’ve got to get you, you’re the one thing

that could keep my night from changing, baby what makes you beautiful

is you and if i was your boyfriend i’d never let you�"

wait, that’s a different singer, innit”�"
and although it was only fun and games at that

point of time, i knew i could trust you for writing

the story of my life, i knew i could hand you the paper

and the pen, and get them back along with, somehow,

no tragic ending, but still a pulitzer.

 

and i realized the pulitzer didn’t really matter.

 

so how could i not want the trace of your finger along the line of my spine after all of this?

 

i finally grasped the concept of forever.

 

the tattoo parlor was a small little shack in the middle

of nowhere, you held my hand as i winced in pain

as the needle sunk into my skin. there were no second thoughts,

though, no going back. the black ink of my love for you

on paper had found its righteous destination.

the infinity sign on my wrist and the word “home”

along my pinky went perfectly with my high heels,

and with my combat boots. i soon took my bracelets

and my rings off.

 

after you left, as i had known you would do before

i’d even met you, i still couldn’t quite understand my logic

for my hatred of tattoos. now when i wrote, i looked

at the silently screaming four-lettered love letter on my pinky

for inspiration. the infinity on my wrist continued

to be the longest i’d spent without yearning for a change.

even after you left, the butterfly that you had made

out of my poetry stretched out its colourful wings

and flew across my sky. the music notes on my sister’s back

still made the same sounds.

 

it was only when i realized that my tattoos needed to be retouched

that i understood the incapability of my younger self

to believe in forevers. 

Author's Note

Is the One Direction bit too childish? Does inexperience bounce off the page?