Tattoo

Some of my writing from the summer (2008)

Tattoo

A few weeks ago, I was almost certain I was going to get a tattoo. I knew what I wanted and where I wanted it. A small fern in simple black lines on the underside of my left wrist, touching but not covering the visible branch of veins that run from my heart stretching into my hand. My pulse would be a breeze tapping at the leaves which are known to be nourished by damp landscapes, but can also thrive on a dry desert plateau.

The hours between 14 days ago and now are sinking into the earth's crust, dissipating and accumulating in deep time. No beginning to begin or end to end. "Now there, now there" Now and then, I tell myself we are all sinking where we stand. Dipping our toes into a great gulf, absorbed by the unknown, falling in up to our knees. Now and then I am swimming in circles, like the moon orbiting you. Keeping it all together for another second. Seconds lifting and weightless now, and now.

Now is standing on a cliff, staring at the scene below. Salty water fills my eyes. Now. Cresting, spilling, plunging. The rocks below brace themselves against the collapsing waves. Now is lifting my right arm and casting a grey stone back to the grey sea. What touched my hand a second before is swallowed whole. Now is backing away from the precipice until my horizon is calm and distant. Distant and gaining distance.

A dam releases somewhere and water fills a reservoir. Too full and drunk off of sediment and dead branches, ghost towns swept up and gulped down. All that remembering rushes into you and settles in your gut like a stone, pulls you down, holds you down, and maybe sets you free. Behind me now, ley lines leak inky black filling up the laid impressions, covering my path.

I don't really think about getting a tattoo now. Maybe because I already have too many traces of living encircling my wrists settled into my skin there. There like the bones of some ancient fish preserved in the strata, forever held by the sea. Like enduring stains on rocks of mossy ferns that once clung there, nourished and thriving until for some reason unknown, no longer surviving. A few weeks ago a high tide was seen racing towards some infinite end, before curving and caving in on itself.