The bells jangle on my way into the shop. This is one of the places where I feel that I truly fit in. Where my technicolor dreams are transferred onto my skin, so that I can look at myself any time and not only see the scars but also the stories.
I love tattoos. Oh, I know some people hate it, old grannies tut at me when I am walking down the street. Boys laugh at me, but all I can think is how can you live without a coat like mine? To not be an illustration, a fairy-tale creature, made of ink and pain. They have no idea.
I got my first tattoo when I was thirteen. It was illegal, of course, but my friend managed to convince him that I was eighteen. It wasn’t hard. It was to commemorate the leaving of my mother, who left me to look after my two little sisters. Alone. It was on my back, a drawing the size of my palm, a white dove leaving a nest. A symbol.
My next was to signify my first caution. Police caution, that is. It was for attacking a girl at school, a bully. You don’t mess with my family-my little sister, April-and get away with it. I don’t regret it. That one was a heart on my left hip, with a thorn in it.
From then on every event, significant or small, I commemorated onto my skin. When I look in the mirror I see my life displayed, better than any diary.
I sit back down into the stool, tilting my neck to the side. It’s meant to be the most painful here. We’ll see. As Nigel, the tattooist, swabs my neck with antiseptic and lowers the cold needle onto my exposed skin. I bite my lip as the sharp sting starts but my eyes no longer tear up.
It takes a long time-this one is intricate, delicate. Nigel needs to be precise or I won’t pay him. When it is done, I stop him from putting the gauze on top. “Let me see it.” He shakes his head at me and then turns my chair around to the mirror.
I stare at the skull in morbid fascination. This one was special, very special and very important. To always remind me of the time when I let myself get close to someone, someone that couldn’t care. To remind myself to always be careful.

Each of my memories has a moral.