Branded

They took the needle to me when I was a foetus. They tried to make the prettiest design they could, but it was destined for failure. He had a large ego and wouldn't rest until some part of the design was an exact copy of his. Passing on his bloodline's coat of arms wasn't good enough for him. She agreed as long as she could design the relatively insignificant part of the design that remained.

The design was one of the first things I learned to draw.

It's you — they told me — so you must always wear it with pride.

I tried; I swear; I tried; but it was always right there on my face, staring out at the world. We held each other prisoner: I it because my skin trapped the ink within so well and it me because after spending so many years with me, it had become me in the eyes of so many people; they put my personality, my  looks, my brain into one godforsaken patch of ink on my face and I hated them for doing it.

So what? — you say — everybody hates the design; you've just got to live with it.

No. Some people are irritated by it, but few truly hate it. I took a hot saucepan to it once, in a fit of dysphoria. I wanted to burn the thing to unrecognisability, but my ancient nerve endings revolted and refused to let stay on my face long enough for it to work. In retrospect, it was a foolish thing to do; if my mark had been erased, law'd've forced me to keep a photograph of it on me at all times.

I want to say, I suddenly acquired the thousands of dollars necessary to adjust both the mark and the records the state's kept of it or in the end, I learned to love what I was given through the genetic shuffle and their piss-poor graphic design skills. I want to say that, but the former would be a complete lie and the latter would just be insulting.

I'm not done living yet — not a Copperfield or a Humbert in any way — and it still lies on my skin, to the world. I'm afraid that you don't get closure because I don't either, and I refuse to make my life into fiction — I scoff at this idea; death of the author my ass!