Won’t say
I’m scared because I, this could be some really pretty, sweeping narrative. I have the skill, I know my craft well enough to paint this picture of scared and lonely, but fuck it. I don’t feel pretty inside, I don’t have any pretty words to bleed, even if I cut both wrists wide open. She won’t say, “I love you! Come back to me,” so I’m scared. The drugs will hit me, and I’ll get sleepy, and nothing will feel beautiful, and maybe I won’t find my way back.
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Tattoo #37
Tattoo by Fish, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City
This, my thirty-seventh tattoo, is from one of my favorite Aimee Mann songs, Susan, which is from her album, Bachelor No. 2 (Or, The Last Remains of the Dodo).
Susan is a song about a relationship. This woman, she meets a fellow, and he makes her really happy, keeps the storm clouds away. Going in, she knows it’s not going to last, that she’ll be lonely again and he won’t be able to drag her out, but none of that matters. She goes anyway. Happiness “may be pure illusion, but it’s beautiful while it’s here…”
It’s a very melancholy, but often very true idea. It’s an idea that’s true of absolutely anything, any human experience. Nothing good in life is guaranteed to last until one drops dead. There’s always the risk of lost love, or rejection, or failure, or returning loneliness, or any bad thing imaginable, but the risks are worth taking. Everything good that we feel is potentially temporary, potentially an illusion, but that illusion can feel pretty fuckin’ awesome when you’re smack in the middle of it. Illusions always have the possibility of turning out to be real. Illusions and possibilities are reasons enough to keep breathing, reasons enough for me anyway.
Sometimes, I just think too far ahead, I think about endings more than the beauty of right now. I’m always trying to remember to enjoy the good things right in front of me. Tattoos are good reminders of things that shouldn’t be tossed away and forgotten, they’re reminders you carry wherever you go.
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