Permanent

In the studio it was a bruise in progress,

all reds and purples under the fluorescents,

my skin raised like it was angry at me.

Now in the store window's sun,

I barely recognize it.

The light bleaches it different—

softer, older, like it's been here longer

than a month.

I can see how someone else would see it.

Not me, not the person in the chair

gripping the armrest,

but a stranger looking at a stranger's arm,

thinking: there's something she decided

and lived with.

There's the regretting it part,

where I wonder what the version of me

without it would have done instead.

There's the loving it part,

where I touch it and feel like I own

something that owns me back.

Both are true.

The ink doesn't care which truth

I'm living in today.