Tattoo (2009)

            Singeing flesh. Mine. The stink of it wafting to my nose. Peeking at my arm after the laser stops pop pop popping, fleshy white bubbles cover the black blurs that were there a moment ago. The pointed pain—a  swarm of yellow jackets striking at once—subsides, makes way for the lightning heat that swells from bicep to tricep.

            I think back to that day eleven years ago, I walked into a tattoo shop with a drawing in hand.

            “I want this,” I said, proudly displaying my drawing that might as well have said “fucked-up girl with massive insecurities and misguided intentions.” I wanted that on my arm, too low for a short-sleeve shirt to cover. A spot where tough guys and biker bitches have tattoos, maybe if I had one I'd be tough too.

            The mass of thickly embedded ink cost seventy-five dollars to put on. The pain of the gun, a brief but intense scratching, nothing like the embarrassment of wearing my dysfunction on my fleshy sleeve for over a decade, or the anguish of handing over twelve hundred dollars to get it removed. Ouch.

            I sashay out of the plastic surgery center, fifth treatment down. Triumph. Swelling already begun, on my arm and in my hopes. Will it be gone this time? At least faded to a cloudy gray? A two-inch wide by six-inch long mound of flesh begins fighting its way beyond the bandage, lurching for an escape from the damage just inflicted, rejecting erasure. Tempted to gouge it, to dig out the ink while the flesh is damp and penetrable, to let my nineteen-year-old-self know that she's no longer welcome, I settle for a sneer in its direction. A final step toward moving beyond that person I'm ashamed I used to be. But I'm getting over it. Doesn't really bother me that much.

            I drive back to work, a contradiction. Back to the bank, to my briefcase-carrying, skirt suit-wearing job. Lunch break over. My retiree-type sedan masking the inked-up young woman inside. Three tattoos total, one that taunts me, the others I never see. At work they know about it, the damned dermaglyphics, guess at what it is. A religious tattoo? True, but not true. Just a drawing. Just ink. Just a tattoo. I was just a girl who made a choice. It's really not a big deal. Sometimes I just make it one.