Lily's hereafter is here with me. She follows and we pass through time like an accordion.

Nobody likes to think of the end. A door slamming. Shoes clicking clicking and growing distant.

Where do we go? Where was I the other morning as I looked inside my head, half asleep and hundreds of thoughts rose rapidly like steam like a train a plague a thousand bees.

Tattoos. Not the stuff of fresh Sunday comic strip vibrance and with meanings as short lived, but indelible thoughts feelings words images. Permanence.

I have a tattoo. At 18 I could not wait. Drawing and erasing and scratching down an outline again, I finally created something of my own imagination. A tattoo artist traced my design with a thick ink and slapped the paper against my skin, then lifted, then punctured. He dragged a jack-hammering needle across pores and follicles and flesh and drew blood that he wiped away with a gloved hand. I counted ceiling tiles window panes and cabinet doors. I stared at artwork on his walls the top of his head bent over a buzzing vibration against sore skin. Rip off a particularly sticky bandage from the same spot a few times until the skin is really raw and so so so sore. That's a tattoo.

Before he began the man asked me, are you sure?

Yes.

Want to see the eraser?

K.

He lifted an old fashioned straight razor, then flipped it open.

I love tattoos. They can be shocking, but I want them for beauty. To me beautiful is our own little individual truths like thoughts like lives like fingerprints. Like Tattoos.

Swirling like wisps of smoke or tendrils of hair, I want to rearrange shapes and wind them around my body. I want celestial I want Mother Nature. I want tattoos. I don't want people to look at me with shock and surprise like I am a child's toy of sparkling stark colors. Maybe I can yank into the light tiny thoughts festering for years in quiet parts of my mind. They stand with foreheads pressed against the window, but never leave the house. There behind the glass is the long ago desire for lots of tattoos. Every year at Christmas I promise myself a tattoo. Or my birthday or New Year's Day.

I see a clearer picture now as I swipe a finger across glass fogged by eager breath. I will have to start drawing and erasing and scratching down.

Hot cold and inky

Deep colors stab me again

Permanently stained.