A Troublesome Reminder
Five years ago
I had a barcode
tattooed on my shoulder,
right above the scapula.
It was an anti-
establishment
statement
plus this girl said
“it’ll look really cool.”
And I did want her
to touch it.
“I’m just another
product of society,”
I would tell people
at the beach.
And they’d say
“dude that’s so punk rock.”
But the truth is,
it hurt
when the needle
repeatedly stuck my back.
And the tattoo
wasn’t as cool
as the girl thought,
after she saw the lines
from Nietzsche
wrapped around Brad’s bicep.
It was no consolation
that they stretched grotesquely
when laughing,
he flexed,
and threw her into the water.
I just had three more (tattoos) stuck on my back last week. Numbers again. I love numbers.
ReplyDeleteI now wear: in sucession:
.........11 11.........
11 14 68.....11 24 74
04 14 77.....05 11 79
.....06 01 1947......
.....03 09 1925......
08 04 1896...11 22 1901
...when my brothers and sisters ascend to the next plane - I will add their birthday down my spine, in a line. I want to be the last to go...wearing their existrence in a row on my soul I will flee to them. I will be buried, again.
Do you have the barcode or is it Brad?
This was a fictitious poem, I actually started it in college, but only like half a stanza or so. I had seen a guy with a barcode tattoo and when I asked him why he had it, he said it was because "girls think I'm a rebel." It just kind of made me feel sick.
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