My body is a canvas
The type you get at Michael's in a pack of three
For $12.99
Pre-gessoed and ready to go
Though they probably won't last forever,
Hanging on a nail in your grandpa's home
I paint my wrists with watercolor bruises,
Purple and blue
Like clouds drifting by a setting sun
I sketch out lines across my thighs
My every action amplified into a performance art piece
I draw with little dots of ink, until I get a picture as permanent than I am  
I cut and dye my hair like cloth
Knowing one day
I will figure out how to stitch myself back together

I got a tattoo last night
Did it myself, all needles and ink
Sterile like the bathroom floor
And wet rags dyed black and pink

It was a little picture of a house
Sitting on top of my left hip
Pinpricks of ink pushed into my skin
And not once did I let the needle slip

You detach me from myself
Like a two hours nap
And I cannot tame
The demons inside of me
Carving your name
In the walls of my skin

The tears on my pillow
Are the only wet dreams
That I have
Because everything
We ever were
Now tattoos my cheeks
With sorrow

I cannot comprehend
How you like to squeeze my heart
Like a little stress ball
And I would go back
To hand it to you
All over again
Every single time
Your lips whisper
“Stay”

How are we stuck?
In this endless cycle
Of me, loving you
And you, using this love
To read the lines in my palm
And to keep me crazy enough
To love you
And sane enough
To cry because I do

He told me commitment was too hard
with a cigarette in his mouth
and tattoos across his skin

-h.w.

Is fear always created?
Should it not exist entirely?

I'm beginning to realize the best way to go about this-
is not to worry if someone else betrays, cheats, trusts, loves or leaves you.
And just do as you please.
Just do what you believe.
The fear is so much bigger than what actually happens.
Pain is deep- but it goes away.
It flickers back in moments- when certain words are mentioned,
but its vocabulary depletes
as you make new memories.
Passion is beautiful.
Is it worth losing what makes you dream- smile and sing,
so you can encase yourself in protective film-
that plays backs the same memories of torment,
just to keep them from happening again?
The mind is not just a powerful thing-
it's fickle.
I'm not afraid to love you.
I'm certain there will be pain-
but ****, I have nine tattoos.

Metal permeated into her skin
Needles containing ink poked her
She moaned in pain.

It was the only way she could forget him.

all your cigarettes
there's smoke in your soul
i swear you're asking for death
(more than the rest of us)
I have words inked in my bloodstream
you have them inked on your skin
you're WALKING ART babe but
art doesn't die

he said he was scared of commitment,
but he had tattoos all over his skin,

i guess he didn't see me as a work of art,
or maybe he didn't think the pain was worth it.

Putting ink and needle
to my skin made me
realize the impermanence
of life. How flesh is a
life time but a life time
is just that,
only some number of years.
They say that tattoos are forever,
but cells flake off, organs decay,
and brains forget
the most important,
beautiful things.
I’m learning that even the
most profound of scars and
aches and pains
are all impermanent.
Because skin is just skin,
and I am just human,
and pain is not permanent.