Tattoos

I've been thinking a lot about how some things are completely permanent. We're taught that most things are fleeting: you lose a job, you get a different one; you lose a boyfriend, you get a new one; you lose your keys, you call the locksmith to change your locks. Why is it always that the things that are permanent are the things you wish would go away: the small gray hairs my 16-year-old cousin teases me about even though she'll have them some day too, that certain sense of child-like insecurity I thought I'd grow out of when I turned 18, coffee stained teeth, and that look that's forever imprinted in my memory -- that sort of lazy shrug and rushed smile when someone turns around one final time before they walk away. That look that says I don't really think I want to go, but I'm not entirely sure. That look that leaves you completely uncertain if that person will ever return, but lets you know that somewhere, deep down, a small part of them -- whether it's as minuscule as the bones in the inner ear or as large as the contents of their rib cage -- will miss you.