They say tattoos hurt,
but not like the silence inside
the kind that screams behind the eyes,
where memories curl up and die.

So I let the needle dance,
its buzz a lullaby
to all the wars I've fought in rooms
no one could ever find.

Each line
a scar I chose.
Each shade
a voice I silenced.
I etched my trauma into roses,
and bled my pain in violets.

It’s not rebellion,
it’s not just art
it’s therapy stitched in skin
when no one else could find my heart.

I wear my story on my sleeve
so I don’t have to speak.
The needle became my journal
when my soul was too weak.

They call it damage.
I call it grace
because in the ink,
I found my place.

A canvas healing
stroke by stroke,
tattoos numbed the parts that broke.

And maybe one day
I won’t need
to mark the grief
I used to bleed.

But until then,
I’ll keep writing
on this paper made of skin,
turning madness into meaning
again and again.