As I light this third one,
your face came up to my mind.

I suddenly wished that your love is like smoking.
When I desired to let in the smoke,
the addictive nicotine of your love
inside my pitiful tired airbags,
I could easily tell myself
to exhale the white
lung filtered ghost
out of my system,
out of my life.

But your love doesn't work that way.
Love is inking your name on my skin
deep through my bones (if it can).
Living in me, thousands of needle bites
In each second piercing through who i am
for the rest of my breathing years.
And through the pain, your name is complete.
Yet when you leave,

your name, your love,
will remain
in blank ink
on my young
cigarette-fumed
skin.

Thoughts come and go
The body burns, yet soul carries on.
Words engraved on paper,
Tattoos engraved on skin.
Both thoughts of the inner soul
Pleading to be heard, to escape.
To be understood during its short existence.
Papers color in age, get brittle,
Become hard to read.
Tattoos fade through the years,
Become less a statement and harder to understand.
although time on this planet is short,
The soul will carry its message for eternity to come.
Like a perfectly placed tattoo engraved to this world forever.

I wonder
                    if my name
                    is tattooed
                    on the inside
                    of your                    eyelids

like your name
                    is tattooed
                    on the inside
                    of mine.

The ink you have seen
My love for you
Rooted
Deep under my skin
There you remain
For always
I will be willing
To suffer

A temporary pain
For a permanent friend.

Your touch went deeper than my skin.
You've penetrated my being.
I breathe you in.
You've seeped into my every cell.
I have your name tattooed on my heart.

I had always figured that in a few years, today’s date would be tattooed on the inside of my left wrist. Now the only tattoos I have are the scars you left in the depths of my mind, and the memory of a summer I won’t forget.