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an ode to the tattoo, from the perspective of a tattoo virgin

Written by Carly Dagen

Shot by Joseph Carbonaro

It took me about 4 months to decide to bleach my eyebrows, and probably 4 years to chop off the long hair I’ve grown out all my life. I have a fake septum piercing from my first big breakup that I can take out, something I bought on Amazon Prime and pretend doesn’t exist. I’ve never had a tattoo, but almost everyone I spend time with does. There’s a lot of reasons for that, I think.

I like hearing the stories behind each tattoo. I like asking about them to flirt or make small talk in a crowded room. I also really like the cliché of me asking, while bare and unmarked myself—and it tends to work. (I do pretty well in Bushwick)

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Sometimes, there’s a deep meaning behind every design—tributes to loved ones or life-changing experiences, something deep and significant that involved hours of drawing and planning. A good friend of mine has her grandmother’s handwriting scrawled across her ribcage, quoting her in Italian. That’s one of my personal favorites.

On the contrary, most of my friends have half-assed stick and pokes they got while stoned in someone’s basement. That is an instant draw in for me. There’s a freedom in that sort of unabashed impulsivity, and a level of security in wearing your choices on your body that I’ve never been able to muster. It’s something I wish I could breathe in

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I’ve gone out with a few tattoo artists, and I trust people with tattoos more, which may be the opposite of the popular consensus. There’s a safety in being around people who look like they bite, knowing they’d never bite you.

My dad has a tattoo he got in his 20s that morphed and contorted into a grey blob on his upper back with years of sun-damage and corporate stress. I think about how something permanent still changed, his body making it his own. He got it covered with a sports logo last year. He’s in his 60s. Rock on

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