You tattoo'd your thoughts onto your skin for me.
It never took much for you to give in.
For every question I asked of you, you gave me an answer.

From how your heart broke to how it was mended
From your one-night stands to your forever departed
You let me see all of you, from the second we said "I love you"

My thoughts are locked behind a fortified cement wall.
But someway, somehow, all you have to do is ask.
My heart has never been so fragile
Nor has it been so protected.

This is for you, baby.
You're my ride or die.
My 0 to 100.
You're the only one I trust enough
To read every one of my tattoo'd thoughts.

they frown
at my tattoos
as I ride past their church;
I think if they had stones they would
cast them

ek het iemand nodig om namens my te bid, te pleit
my gebede val soos ouds op dowe ore ongehoor
ek voel oud en alleen uit gesmyt
ek het nou op gehou pm te glo ek kan toor
ek het ver geval en seer gekry
ek het op gegee op my
my kop en my lyf probeer mekaar so ver moontlik vermy
weereens het ek myself verloor
ek is te moeg om op te staan om weer te begin soek
ek is bang vir die kry, die kruis verhoor
ek voel teen gekant en vervloek
ek is niks nie anyways

Maybe she was looking for somebody to warm
her up all the time and God, when it got
too dark outdoors you cried kerosene and set
fire to yourself just to provide her safety and security.
And maybe it's true that everything
comes in a paradoxical form and that's
why even though you were born from
a warm womb, your soul was so icy cold
she burnt her fingertips just touching it
and probably mistook it for the heat she
had always been longing for. I know that it's ironic,
I know that your dreams lay somewhere
beside her perfect body and shiny hair
but your reality is four suicide
attempts and cutting your wrists open
over some permanent tattoo where
her love was supposed to be skinned.


-- Eleanor

Those tattoos of his
are the visual storyteller
every ink he painted
is a beautiful work of art
same thing happen
when he makes a mess
of my red lipstick

I walk with a head full of clouds, a mouth full of wisdom
Trudging in a sea of doubt flippantly filling in the void with words unspoken
Teetering on the edge of what is "right" what is "wrong"
Floating on the tempting water between what I am and what I "should be"
What the letters upon the box should say, were they stuff me to forget me
Their labels still sting the inside of my nose, the latex embedded in the skin from each ripping and re-sticking.
I wear a face upon my skin her butterfly headdress bleeds the color of their contempt, the slick lines of abstract freedoms morph to become the fluttering of a thousand wings
What I want most I have bled to show, how my mind works and sees has printed on the skin
Put there to remind all I am more within.

My skin knows evil so well
But it never knew you.