My body doesn’t exist for other people.

It’s mine, to mess with, to mark.

It doesn’t belong to my parents. It doesn’t belong to my lover. It doesn’t belong to my children.

It doesn’t exist solely as an object to be styled in a certain way for others, as a currency to spend, or a tool to use in that grasping life-long campaign to belong.

Getting a tattoo was a small challenge to my perfectionism. It scratched a small line in the sand, in a small way claiming my body as my own canvas, for me to use in creativity rather than in fear.

It was a small dissent against the fearful voice that says I must forever strive to control how people see me, must forever camouflage myself. A small, painful, beautiful turning away from that foolish but ferocious fever dream in which I will fit in if I can avoid ever calling attention to my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, reactions. A loosening of the knots I tie when I try to wrap up the dangerous specificity of me that I fear will leave me rejected rather than welcomed in.

A tattoo is a long-lived statement, a style choice, a definition that endures, creating an odd juxtaposition of identities as one ages. It’s flagrant because of its longevity. While a 22-year old might wear fishnet stockings, they’re unexpected on a granny, stretching over sagging, papery soft thighs.