Tattoo

Tattoo

The warm weight of a surgically gloved hand rests against my fleshy side

Gravity heavy and secure

With the flickering buzz and hum

Burning needles singe the wicks of my nerves endlessly

Knives meticulously sawing, cutting, piercing, scraping, stabbing

Blades with heavy feet

Running with varied cadence across epidermal topography

I cannot outrun the pain

Carving canyons of smoldering tissue

Scouring the image in

The picture must be birthed through the narrow canal of pain

A throbbing river

Waves of lightning ink surge, burst, and sear

Buried under layers

Of trauma

Emotional wounds rise

As the needles dive in

Which I have survived

Creating…

Art

This last week I got my first tattoo. It was 5 hours of the most intense pain I’ve ever experienced. Sometimes, depending on where the tattoo needle was, it felt like a hot knife scraping my flesh. Other times it felt like my tattoo artist was Captain Ahab sadistically and meticulously harpooning a beached Moby Dick with a magical harpoon set aflame by Hades and concentrated ghost pepper extract. That was a long time to try every pain tolerance technique I’ve heard of or could imagine.

I told myself to imagine the pain was pleasurable…nope, didn’t work. I tried feeling the pain and telling myself, “It’s okay. You’re safe. Those are just needles. You’re in no harm. Holyshitballsoffirewhatyouarefeelingistherealestmotherfuckingpainever!!! And you’re still safe. Those are just needles. It’s okay. It’s OKAY. It’s OKAY!!!” I tried staring at a single thing in the room so that everything else would fade away. I ended up staring at almost every single thing in my sight for at least a few minutes each before the pain returned as quickly as it would sort-of-fade-away but not-really-fade-away. I tried focusing on a beautiful tree in my mind while breathing on the hairs of my left forearm while my right hand was tightly gripping the thigh part of my jeans and clenching my teeth. I held my breath for as long as the needle was on my skin and took a breath whenever the needle wasn’t touching me, imagining I was surfacing for air while swimming. I imagined I was David Blaine doing some feat of endurance. I imagined I was Lance Armstrong and the pain was the lactic acid in my legs while I powered up the hills of the Tour de France. I listened intently to whatever was streaming from Pandora, even the commercials. I kept telling myself this is only a moment in time and it will be over soon. I did those things and more, cycling between different survival techniques for 5 long hours.

And after all was said and done, my tattoo artist told me he was impressed with how I sat. Although I was in constant agony, he heard neither a peep nor felt a strong twinge from me.

Speaking of which, I almost forgot to mention a particular pain tolerance technique I used. It was one that kind of shocked me, which I’ve used before for other painful things in life, and that I’m not proud of. I told myself that I deserved the pain. In those moments I imagined the pain to be miniscule to the pain I may have caused others. In my mind I minimized my pain by comparing it to others who I imagine suffer more than me…the mother in the throngs of child birth, people who have been tortured, all those who had ever suffered intolerable injuries and sicknesses. I told myself I’ve been a bad person before and this pain pales in comparison to what I should suffer for all the times I fucked up…so bear it and don’t be a bitch.

It scared me that I could think that way and really tap into such feelings, but in other ways I’m not surprised. I know the persecutory and minimizing voice inside me that came out has been the result of a collection of angry voices in my life. Unhealthy internalizations. Guilt derived from a punitive superego made manifest. It is what evil wants me to believe. But although pain is inevitable, regardless of whether or not it is deserved, it doesn’t mean I need to join its efforts to tear down. Getting the tattoo just reminded me I still have a lot of healing to undergo…healing that forms a beautiful picture.