i was an awful liar-
especially when it came to
my parents, their eyes
always on me,
their sole daughter.
i didn’t think
of them when I sat on
the sofa of the tattoo shop
my nerves humming with the anticipation of
permanency,
looking over to my friend, katja
her knee jumping to the beat of the song
tiny beads of sweat on her upper lip.
soon, we were ushered in
a room smaller than my bathroom at home.
who wants to go first?
seeing anxiety flicking over katja\'s face,
i volunteered.
laying down on the table,
the black leather sticking to my skin,
i thought of my mom
who got a tattoo on her ankle when she was fifteen.
whenever she’d talk about it
she’d roll her eyes with a smile
i was so stupid then.
are you ready? my artist asked,
a large tattoo of the Buddha stretched around his
smaller tattoos filling the rest of the space.
i breathed out a yes,
a tremor rippling through me as
the machine buzzed to life.
i focused on the smell of the room
sterile, clean-
while i felt dirty,
the grime of guilt sunk its teeth into me
as the needle touched my skin.
i felt the vibration in
my heart
my lungs
my throat.
the needle itself felt like a boxcutter
my ribs a tightly sealed package.
pleasant, no
agonising, no
some sort of purgatorial sensation.
gaining ink,
losing skin forever.
when i was a baby
teetering through the tiled kitchen
i would fall.
my parents learned to turn their back on me when this happened
and swore that if i thought they didn\'t see me fall
i wouldn’t cry-
so i squeezed my friends hand and smiled,
it’s not that bad.
as it finished,
i examined the red patch of skin surrounding the ink in the mirror.
guilt and giddiness coincided within me,
along with a strange sense of loss.
this skin,
originally given to me by my parents
grown and changed through the years
becoming freckled in the sun and pale in the cold
was gone.
in its place, the number 18.
the dinner table at home that night
was normal. we discussed the weather while i felt
my skin throbbing around the ink
screaming to be exposed.
until the day of my eighteenth birthday i covered the ink.
when i finally revealed the tattoo
my dad’s laughter rung through the house
my mom pulled me close-
you must be your mother’s daughter.