there is a scar on my forearm
where pain once opened a door I never meant to walk through.
and just above it—
there is ink.

not to cover,
but to honor.
not to erase,
but to rewrite.

a brain and a heart,
entangled.
not in opposition—
but in conversation.
connected by wires,
or maybe veins,
or maybe something holier than either.

I used to think I had to choose—
logic or love
rationality or feeling
selflessness or survival.

but I was trained in the gospel of self-erasure.
taught to anticipate everyone else’s needs
before I ever learned to ask myself:
“what the hell do you need?”
and even if I had asked,
the answer would have caught in my throat,
choked out by guilt
and the ghost of obligation.

because I was supposed to be
the good daughter,
the emotional translator,
the fixer of moods,
the feeler of everyone else’s feelings.

they called it kindness.
“you’re too nice”.
I called it exhaustion.
because how do you think for yourself
when you’ve only ever been rewarded for disappearing?

and every time I tried to speak,
to set a line in the sand,
they said I was dramatic,
ungrateful,
too much.

I am not too much.
they just asked me to live in too little.

it isn’t just ink.
it’s a reclamation.
it says:
“I won’t keep bleeding quietly
just so you don’t have to see your reflection in the mess.”

it says:
“I have boundaries now.
not because I hate you.
but because I finally want to love me.”

I have spent years
reading rooms like scripture,
absorbing tension like oxygen,
offering versions of myself
tailored to everyones comfort
and calling it connection.

but I’ve learned—
connection without truth
is just performance.
and I’m done auditioning
for love that demands I amputate parts of who I am.

they said balance was something you find.
but I bled for mine.
I built it
nerve by nerve.
word by word.

now I wear ink on my skin
not for show,
but for remembrance.

it is my altar.
my vow.
my refusal to be edited
just to keep someone else’s peace.

because I am not the wound.
I am what grew beside it.

a wire runs
from synapse to sigh,
from heartbeat to hypothesis—
and I am the bridge,
living in the middle.

but remember - lauren -
tattoos disgust me.