i was an awful liar-
especially when it came to 
my parents, their eyes 
always on me, drinking my presence in
their sole daughter. 

i didn’t think
of them when I sat on 
the sofa of the tattoo shop
waiting.

soon, we were ushered in
who wants to go first?
seeing anxiety flicking over my friend’s face,
i volunteered. 

laying down on the table, 
I thought of my mom
who got a tattoo on her ankle when she was fifteen. 
she laughed when she told me, 
her and the tattooist chain smoked as he worked. 

are you ready? my artist asked,
extending his forearm in a stretch. 
a large tattoo of the Buddha stretched around it
smaller tattoos filled the rest of the space. 
i breathed out a yes, 
stress rippling through me as the machine buzzed
into life. 

i focused on the smell of the room
sterile, clean- 
all things I felt the opposite of. 
guilt sunk its teeth into me as the needle touched my skin. 

the needle itself felt like a boxcutter
my ribs a tightly sealed package.
pleasant, no
agonising, no
some sort of purgatorial sensation. 
gaining a tattoo,
losing that skin forever.

as it finished,
i examined the red patch of skin surrounding the ink in the mirror. 
guilt and giddiness coincided within me,
along with a strange sense of loss. 

this skin, 
grown and changed through the years
becoming freckled in the sun and pale in the cold
was gone.
in its place, the number 18. 

when i went home with my friend
the guilt was replaced by giddiness 
and flickers of nausea

i hid that tattoo until i was eighteen,
where i finally revealed it to my parents. 
they laughed and laughed
my mom pulling me close-
you must be your mother’s daughter.