“What do your tattoos mean to you?”
That is a repetitive notion I receive almost daily.
I currently have three tattoos.
These tattoos of mine hold meaning.
I always thought of tattoos as our way
of choosing which scars we want the world
to know. .
I chose these tattoos to show
the world what I had;
who I am, who I choose to be.
My first tattoo:
the Superman shield displays my love
for the character and all he stands for;
& the love and strength I saw in my brother
during his last year of life.
the ankh relays the meaning behind
“Life after Death.” My brother’s soul
lives on long after his body had been burned.
“Death” is the last comic my brother gave me.
The main character wears an ankh around her neck.
The butterfly wings show my fandom
for them, plus the wings my brother
was given the moment his eyes shut
and never again, opened.
These “scars” show me who I lost, who
I’ll never get to know, who I
long to be to a stranger I see myself
next to, smiling in family snapshots.
My Second Tattoo:
‘Word’ is what few appear
to understand, to grasp.
My brother never got a tattoo.
Sure, he had many piercings.
But never a tattoo.
It couldn’t be because of the pain
you are sure to endure.
He was a poet, like myself.
I was once told he had gotten
up on stage, and with the mic
he held his audience in the palm
of his hand.
I am a poet.
I dabble in performance poetry.
That is why I had the tattoo artist
write out ‘Word” on my right wrist.
My brother always ended his poems
with ‘Word,’ and now,
so shall I.
Scars can heal with time.
That is what we all are told.
Tattoos are the scars we choose
for ourselves.
To show the world that we are
not afraid of the scars from within.
We embrace the bad with the good.
We turn something dark and depressing
and make it something we can
look to with a smile.
My Third Tattoo:
I chose butterflies.
I told myself I would never once
get a tattoo that could be found
in a tattoo artists’ book.
Mine were to be unique.
My friend, Dorianne, is an artist.
She had drawn me three penciled butterflies.
I imagined those same butterflies
bursting with color on my shoulder;
like paint brushes with a built-in
airbrush effect that lasts… permanently.
Scars heal over time.
Mine never will.
I’m proud of that.
What does your scars show you?
What does your tattoo mean to you?