I pried out my own skin
wide open
with needles dipped
in cheap india ink; I dabbed
at the black mixed with red
staining my fingers.
Do I do this for the pain,
or to get the poison trickling in
to my skin, to my veins?
A symbol, an alphabet.
Vast meanings that I tried to bestow
upon them hours later
really means nothing at all.

There's the cause and the effect,
which really goes both ways.
The pain for the gain
of the blurred out ink under my skin,
and the gain for the pain
of the sharpness prickling

my ankles, both legs
bare the stain of alcohol tinged
nights.
The skin beneath my eyelids
a darkened haze;
but the tattoo still burns
needle-sharp against it all.