By Isabella Tarttelin
I’ll get a tattoo and I’ll memorialise you onto my body. I’ll endure ten minutes of suffering for a sunflower on my ankle so that when I look at it, I’ll think about all the pain it caused me. As if I didn’t know that already. As if that cold instance of inked pain was anything to the flood that choked and thrummed beneath my ribcage. And I’ll scratch and pick at the bottom of this bucket of gags until there is nothing left and I am left chewing on my lip. A cracked and dry lip that only recently tried to pathetically layer lip balm. ‘What happens when there is nothing else to say?’ whispers past those gates. So maybe I’ll lie, I’ll write you into my academic plans and travel visits and fable you to my employers for an easy day off. If I’m drunk enough, it’ll let leak my guilt of promises to write and call. Perhaps I’m older now, I’m no longer inflicted by the adolescent adherence to trivialising things such as affection. No longer desperate for time to pass and things to change, bodies to grow and friends to move. Not until the presents were past and your handwriting no longer wept into Christmas and birthday cards.
I’ll stand up in the living room and declare sweet thoughts and soft memories as if they weren’t shoved under the bed alongside functions of x. I’ll fish around in the dust and delicately unfurl the edges of my fist and wonder why it took this for me to realise. Maybe they’ll believe this performance, maybe they’ll see through the filmy layer hiding self-condemnation, maybe I just didn’t realise that I held you so tight until you were prised away. Leaving little half-moons indented into my palm like a sofa depression gone cold in the early evening. But it’s easier to ignore all these little complications so I don’t fall apart entirely as I stand, so I’ll pick the part that can cohere the big holidays and silly games into a terse comment about life. I’ll pick the part that allows the rest of you to simper and awe, readily presenting your jewelled rehearsals. All holding our breath, shuffling our feet, silently competing for the most touching reminiscence. For the most worldly advice about grief; touching my arm and whispering a piss poor metaphor about death and glitter. And I’ll try to look them in the eye but they’re gazing off, providing a desperate mimicry of a monologue. Playacting, because it’s far easier to prance about on a stage than to see this theatre is empty. There’s no audience, we’re all up here, senselessly sliding our stares at the wings for her to come out and accept these flowers. Big fake flowers that will die with her anyway and big fake frowns that she told me she hated. Wasn’t she terrific; she hated unhappy faces? Maybe I’m angry, maybe I’m bitterly desperate to shatter this poised room and cut my tongue facetiously recounting her serrated benevolence and prove to everyone that if she really was perfect, she’d be here.
So I’ll get a tattoo and I’ll get on a bus after asking for the wrong ticket and endure the glare from the bus driver. I’ll sit on the only seat that isn’t stained from a drunk tussle from the night before. I’ll stand up a little too early for my stop and be catapulted three meters down the bus but still thank them for their generosity. I’ll spend the money that I earnt at my minimum wage job, and I’ll pretend it doesn’t hurt as much. I’ll trace the needle clusters and smudge the ink and think ‘God, this is forever’, and mourn all over again. I’ll pass the beauty shop on my way back home and linger around the Chanel section. The worker will ask me if I need any help and I’ll smile politely and say no and pocket a sample of your perfume. I’ll curl up in my bed and watch wedding reels and graduation ceremonies and fantasise. I’ll let tears of ink and a faded scent permeate your way into my womanhood. I’ll grab my coat at the last minute to ‘keep my kidneys warm’. I’ll eat mincemeat out of the jar and roll pastry much too thick. I’ll judge quickly and won’t let any fool suffer gladly. I’ll squirm at prawn cocktail crisps and fall asleep listening to the television. I’ll become a part of the edge you left behind, and the tattoo will only be a scab which picks at my guilt and anger and pitiful acceptance.
Featured Image: Sutherland Macdonald