Love Tat

[Erthona]

Hey Mark, thanks for the comments. I corrected the comma/em dash problem. That was a typo, thanks for catching it.

Yeah, on the two guys names. The "Big Mac Attack". She asks herself afterwards why she did that, because this all happens at the same time. She gets all this tattoo in one sitting. I think I could add the line, after like

—you wonder why you had him scrawl—
“Big Mac Attack”
…with an arrow pointing down,
cause Tommy hadn't yet left town?

And that would make it a little more clear.

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I did this next one several ways. Here is one you may like better.

A green metallic blob gone painfully wrong
on the inside of the thigh, “Well...it could be a dragon?
Couldn't it ?"
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v-- I see what you're doing with the 'dialogue-ish' verse here, but I'm not sure it's working because I don't get a feel of who is asking the questions ----------------------------------------------------------
It's both the narrator, and the voice inside her head. I realize it suffer from clarity, but I don't really know how to make it clear who is talking. I would be fine with either. I just don't want to have to say,

the voice inside her head says.....

Although it may come to that. It just feels very awkward to to that. Another way to go about it is to italicize it, which usually indicates the same thing. I can also change the grammatical person so it stays in narrator mode like:

"You’re a Big Girl ain’t cha?
Never let ‘em see you cry,
never let ‘em know that you could die,
from self-inflicted embarrassment,
at this overt display of your best,
better judgement.

They laugh at her and point,
holding their sides and starting to cry.
She pretends to try and smile,
while remembering how she
stupidly waved goodbye
to the last bit of her innocence:
thinking herself so very clever!"


Part of the problem is dealing with the tense, because there are three time periods being dealt with. There is the present time, from where this is being told which is some time after the event, and after "Tommy" is not longer in the scene, which generally falls under the all knowing narrator.

There is the event itself, which is in the past, and or the immediate past.

Then there is the morning after, where she is getting laughed at and starting to realize what she has done, which is in the past, but uses past perfect for the dialogue.

The question I am struggling with is which tense/person mode to use in each, which I suspect is part of the problem with the clarity.
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As this is basically a fable, it of course has to have a moral at the end which is what

"Love is fleeting; tattoos are forever!"

is.

What you say about that is most likely true, I am just resistant to giving up that line at the moment. I had thought of using it for a title, but it kind of gives away the ending, and I also like the pun with "Love Tat/ Love Tap.

Structurally, I think it makes the poem end strong, as it ends on that hard rhyme. Aesthetically I think it probably weakens the poem, and takes away from the poignancy (to steal your word) of her realization, and the idea that once innocence is gone there is no calling it back.
The ironic part about it is, this part

"You pretend to try and smile,
while remembering how you
stupidly waved goodbye
to the last bit of your innocence:
thinking yourself so very clever!"

Was written to create a rhyme with that last line. Until I decided I wanted a rhyme for it. Originally these were the last two lines, before the punch line.

"at this overt display of your best,
better judgement."

I sense you are correct about this, but I'll let others weigh in on it if they will before I make a decision.

Thanks for the critique. Feel free to respond further.
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Thanks for the read Billy, I look forward to any comments you would like to share about the poem, or about what Mark and I have discussed.

Thanks,

Dale