Tattoo by Angelique Tung
You ask if we can get tattoos – you text photos of flowers and monkeys and ask me to choose, to mark my body as a reminder. But you haven’t talked to me for a week because of something that was none your business and I wonder when you leave me if I’ll look at that tattoo and it will have the same meaning tomorrow as it does today? Last night I had a dream when you were a baby and I held you and stared into your big brown eyes and kissed your face and whispered I love you. Now, you want me to mark my body with the sun or the moon but you’re already my son and moon and no amount of ink can remind me of how you shot of out me like a watermelon seed the day you were born or how you cried and cried and cried and I couldn’t soothe you but still I was in awe of how I could be your mother. One day you learned to read and gave me monkey hugs and jumped into my arms and wrapped your skinny boy legs around my waist and I inhaled you as if it were the first time and I was the one you came out to when you were twelve but I already knew and there was no way on this earth that I could love you more but the next day I did and like a needle in a record, the grooves became imperceptibly deeper, and here’s the thing I want to tell you, or maybe I did and forgot, but you are permanently inked on my body, in my soul and the only way to remove that carbon stain will be when I cast off this mortal coil.
Artist’s Statement
I have been writing about trauma since the earth cooled so it’s a pleasure when the muse visits and am inspired to write about the beauty of life. As I’ve grown older, I have learned not to be disappointed when life doesn’t go as planned and instead, welcome possibility.
Angelique Tung received her MFA in creative nonfiction from Fairfield University. She currently works as an associate editor at Brevity, a reader at Pangyrus, and the Editor in Chief at Causeway. She teaches creative writing workshops to 9/11 survivors and first responders. She works with students in crafting brilliant college essays and is pursuing teaching projects that allow her to work with trauma survivors. Her memoir in progress focuses on her experience with breast cancer, body identity, and generational trauma. You can find her work in Pangyrus 8 and Beyond Words.