tattoo trails

By Kennedy Acker

It was never our right time.

We met when I was too young. Folding shirts and taking inventory. I was way too excited to be able to spend that night with you. I was in awe of your counting skills. You counted the khakis with one look, and I had to touch every single one. That nonchalant smirk behind your coffee cup as I confirmed the number. Butterflies had never hurt before. I relished in them, so delightfully painful that I dreamt of their cocoons as home.

Time passed. I was older.

I had to touch every single one of your tattoos, too. Trace every line. My fingers rising and lowering again in the trail over your veins. You told me I was going to put myself to sleep.

I wish I didn’t have to fight that sleepiness. I wish I could’ve molded into your body and rested there forever.

I could hear the waves crashing on the shore. The most delicious drowsiness. The moon drenched your face in the most intoxicating light. It was cold out. As cold as your shoulder would be, I would come to learn.

Time passed. We were older.

But I was still young and in a never-ending love. I loved you beyond any other love I had or would have.

But.

I was going to college. You wanted me to have the “full college experience.” “Not to be tied down.” You also blamed the distance.

I didn’t want the college experience. I wanted you. I would’ve fought all of the miles and years for you. The long days and nights would have been no match for me. You underestimated my strength, and I resented you for it.

And I thought you were taking the easy way out. This was the perfect excuse to get rid of me. Me—the girl who felt too much and dove head first into “us.” Thank GOD she’s going to college, right? You were the one that decided. You let me go.

I hung on. And hung on. And hung on and my arms tore and bled until they reached bone. The tendons ripping and curling apart like broken guitar strings. I couldn’t let go. But I “moved on.” Whatever the fuck that means. There really isn’t “moving on” when it comes to my soul and you.

But time still passed. I graduated. You were still on your own. Had you waited for me? Had you actually, truly, genuinely loved me the whole time? Why didn’t you say anything? Say anything at all.

The goddamn time passed. I got married.

This question of requited love would consume me for years. The confusion running through my veins. The heaviness in my head made my ears ring. I would let it drown me; take me over

So black, that I went looking for you. It had been years and I still couldn’t be without you. I was married and I could not bear it. I went full-on “oh, that crazy bitch.” And I knew it was crazy. Cause what would’ve happened if I did find you? We would run away together into a nonexistent sunset? If only life worked that way. If only no one else would get pummeled by my reckless.

Me—the girl who felt too much and dove head first into “us.”

I looked for you at work. I told my friends that I had heard about this great place with a DJ and a bar. So they came with me. They didn’t know my intentions were insane. I searched for you every hour until I realized that I wasn’t going to find you. Or see you ever again. I was right about that.

So I drank. The gin burned beautifully warm all the way down. I drank until I felt like I had been set on fire. Until my insides cried out. But was I burning from the liquor? Or from the shards of heart that broke and sank into the pits of me and shredded my intestines to pieces? I’ll never know.

The smoke still fills my chest now, as I write this. It billows through my limbs, down my fingers. I can smell it on my leadgrey fingertips.

I had to leave. I had to get out of there. My feet were sticking to the tequila glossed floor. Everything was spinning. I couldn’t breathe. I screamed to force air back into my lungs. My best friend caught me in the parking lot before I hit my knees.

I had lost all control at the thought of having to look for you forever. To wander every street for you, even when I know it’s impossible for you to be there. To have to think of you in every song I would hear. To wonder if that old wives’ tale, “When you dream of someone, it means they are thinking of you,” was actually true.

Maybe I’m just praying that it is true. You still invade my dreams nightly.

Lord Huron told me I am haunted by your ghost, and it fucks me up every time he throws it in my face. If pain could be a song, it would be that one. My fingers touch my thumb to the beat.

Pinky-ring-middle-index Pinky-ring-middle-index

Over and over until the tears run down to my neck. My shirts have become too salt-filled. Discolored in the shape of droplets. I try to skip it before I can hear that first lethally harmonized chord.

Time passed…

And still. I can see the bluest eyes staring back at me. I can feel your hands on my neck. What new tattoos could I trace now?

I kept the business card that you wrote your number on. I kept that last voicemail in my phone. I still love you every day.

My precious reader, I’m sorry that I am the villain of my own story. I love my husband, more than you could ever know. I

understand that is hard to believe, now that you know all of this. I’m sure you’re pensive.

“Thinking about other men like that is cheating.” “Unfaithful.”

I can hear and feel your thoughts through the page. I know. Once a cheater, then, I guess. I never was a good person.

I have no defense. Guilty as charged. But there’s a certain hurt

that comes with never knowing what could’ve been if it was ever given a chance. When it was ripped from your trembling hands. Knuckles stained white. The day we ended was my bitter ending. That “me” died that day.

But time passed. Will continue to pass. We’ll always get older. The years will eventually run out. But the embers that came from my fire for you will stay lit forever, even if the flames eventually dissipate.

The dim orange will brighten a final time when I can let you go, at last, with my dying breath.

My precious reader, I’m sorry that I am the villain of my own story. I love my husband, more than you could ever know. I understand that is hard to believe, now that you know all of this. I’m sure you’re pensive.