Burn
Burn
Tattoo - The word, BURN
About 3 years ago I was dating a girl which was intense but short lived relationship. Everything was good, she was the love of my life, sadly it didn’t work out as I had some issues with my mental health. When we broke up I was really depressed and probably indoors for about a year.
One day, I needed motivation to get out of bed and have something to look forward to again and thought, I’m going to book a bunch of tattoos. I got my ribs done and a latin quote on my hand, as a reminder of her but also, vague in a way, so I got a quote, which is cringey to look back on now.
In latin it translates to ‘I close my eyes so I can see’, its meant to be about perspective, things aren’t always how they seem on the surface and sometimes you need to take a step back.
For a while I thought, its cool, I like the placement and then people starting asking me what it meant all the time and overtime I felt distant to the initial reason why I got it and started to regret it. Every time I looked at it, it brought me back to a bad place.
I still have a lot of love for her and everything we went through but feel the reasons I got it were not for me and more for someone else, so wanted to get them covered.
I found an artist who does cryptic, gothic script style tattoos, sent a photo of my hand and then went into the studio. He took a look, drew a stencil. and said he can put a 4 letter word there, so I thought, what can I get?
The word BURN came to mind, as it was reflective of everything I’d been through, everything that has changed me as a person, having to lose someone and having to find my own growth.
In a way feel it was the death of a part of me that I didn’t want to carry anymore, like a rebirth, feel its reflective of transformation, so now when I look at my hand I know it's still under there and it makes me feel better about the whole thing, its behind me. It was a cathartic experience.
Do you have a tattoo you’ve regretted and wanted to cover? or have a tattoo which represents the death of a part of you and rebirth of another?