This one’s
a hometown.  
It’s the place I’m from
and no place
you would know,
unless you were from there yourself.
It was quiet and peaceful and 
the local papers called it
quaint and 
picturesque.
Some of those things
were true back then,
but not all of them,
and none
remain so;
still, it’s important
to know where you’re from
and so I have this on me
as it is inside me.

This one’s
a name.
She was too young,
very beautiful, 
yes, of course she was.
It was long ago:
a car, a tree, 
a short, accidental flight ago,
an early passing ago. 
The pain’s 
gone away, at least as far
as it will ever go, and so
I keep her name on me
as it is inside me.

As for this one —
that was something
I saw in myself once
when I still thought
I would someday
have a backstory
that would need an end — as in,
once upon a time
I was from a town named this.
Someone with this name lived there.
I left after she died
and turned myself into this,
found another,
lived happily, etc., etc.

It never happened.
I never became that.
I never found another
name to wear.
This last tattoo
now proclaims
a loss, a blank space, 
a holder against
probability
that I will never
be complete.