Youth

That day at the tattoo parlor
that day was more than a thousand eight hundred
days ago or so.

'Was?' you had said

'What?' I had said
because I didn't know that was German,
because you didn't look like
The Baptist to me.

I stood inside the parlor
and you stood outside.

And in the years that came to be,
it was like this for us;

parallel opposites.

I didn't like your girlfriend,
my boyfriend was your best friend.

I made you up in my head
read in between the lines to fuel my imagination
of how you'd be like.

Kelly and coke.
Sex and blood.

You didn't have to make me up
in your head;
you knew how I drew
depth from skin with silver glints
studs in flesh
fixated in love and violence.

Which was why you would ever so
purposely ask,

How is
Joey?

You were not any better,
you exorcised demons
to your arms.

You were always this strange knight
to match me with my studs as armour.