If My Tattoos Could Talk, They’d Bleed A Novel So Heartbreaking

I’m not one to openly share my feelings with anyone
but if the stories behind my tattoos
could come alive at first glance
they would bleed out a novel so heartbreaking.

There are many moments in life
in which I’ve wanted to capture
the essence of every single emotion
that flooded into my brain and overtook my mind
and they were moments so low
that I said to myself,
do not forget how much effort it took
to let this moment pass.

There were moments in life
that deep in my soul,
I knew something was going to radically change
the path I was bound to take
and I wanted those moments etched into my skin.
I wanted them to live their own stories
painted in other languages
so they could tell the story
a different way each time someone asked.

And when I knew that
whatever was happening to me in that very moment
was significant enough to scratch onto my skin,
life seemed to change its course.

So when someone asks,
what does your tattoo say?
what do your tattoos mean?
It’s more complicated that a one-sentence answer
or a simple explanation of a symbol.

They mean
in that very second in time
the moment ink sunk into the skin
and forever found its place on my body,
I was becoming a new person
and overcoming a dark time
in which I only wanted myself
to fully remember
so I wouldn’t enter a time so painful
again.

Anyone who can read
what these tattoos say
can be fully assured that
they know the darkest parts
of my heart.
But that is a place the world
has yet to venture.