Permanence.

I just try to move past it every day.

But it's like a perpetual tattooing. I look down and see the needle and the ink and the blood. It doesn't feel like my own. I can't believe it's my own. Sometimes it hurts worse than others, but it always hurts and I am always aware of it. It's a feeling I've never felt before, it's unlike anything.

I'm not used to it. It feels adrenaline-pumping and painful and tingling and annoying and like a hot razor and like a good scratch and unbelievably permanent. It's the same disbelief that's been following me everywhere.

Is this really how things are now?

Has all this really happened?

This accusation is perplexing.

Nothing has ever hurt so badly in my life. But I can't just jerk away every time the artist starts drawing. I make myself sit still.

Will this tattoo turn out to be something beautiful?