tattoos >> muke

1 - n a t u r a l l y

Now, looking back, I still have no idea what I was doing in that part of town. Actually, I don't know why I let HIM do it, of all people. Of all the people in the shop, he looked about 12 in comparison to the inked, pierced and punk people who strode confidently around the dingy interior of the place.

I didn't understand what a kid like him was doing there. To be honest, he was a little too pretty to be working in a tattoo parlour. I mean,

I'm not saying tattoo artists are supposed to look a certain way, but the generic image of a tattoo artist is a muscled guy with green hair and 5 piercings on his face alone/inked up girl with pink hair and cigarette smell wafting off of her. Stereotypically speaking, Luke was the antonym. A pretty antonym.

He had blond hair the colour of the word flute and blue eyes the colour of the dawn on an all-nighter. He was tall. When I say tall, I mean tall. And he knew how to dress. Skinny black jeans tickling his ankles and hugging his long, thin legs. A loose, black top with some weird saying about destroying yourself or whatever.

The black complimented his skin, which I think I loved most about him. His skin was the breaking point between tan and pale- like the sand at the top of the beach, untouched by the waves but untouched by the beach-goers.

Untouched.

He was untouched. He was a blank canvas, and I don't mean that in the tumblr way. I am glad he was blank. It made him... purer, in a sense. Not a single tattoo was to be seen- no drunken-stupor regret peeked from beneath his shirt, nor a heat of the moment But Certainly Deep And Meaningful dragon tattoo snaking up his arms.

God, his arms. His fingers weren't too long, nor too short. They were like ribbons for a little girl's hair- just long enough to tie something in place and hold it there ((for the foreseeable future)). His veins shone out like watercolour paint streaked down his biceps; rain tracks on a foggy window.

His face was perfect. The only tainted part of him was the ring that lay on his bottom lip, which he liked to bite and take in his teeth when he got nervous. His teeth were naturally straight and naturally white and somehow his breath never failed to smell like peppermints, even after he had drunk.
His eyebrows were like a manicured lady's- curved and shaped to perfection. Naturally.
And the way he looked at you.
It made you feel like you were the only one who noticed him, and for that he could never take his eyes off of you again.

The first time I walked into that parlour, I made myself a promise.

I promised myself that one day I would be returning to that parlour, but with Luke. And this time, he would be tainted by me.

But not in a way that would hurt him. Because nothing could hurt the naturally perfect person that I, Michael Clifford, came to realise, was hopelessly unattainable.