one day i’ll have a tattoo of an asshole and some alien words.
an artist will draw it on my back in honor of you
to remind me that you were—
(and always will be)—
behind me.

the permanence of the ink is like that of memories,
my human method of unsticking time,
when i want to be some time else.

today i am twenty-three,
but i can be sixteen
and seventeen
whenever,

and that is
enough.