the pictures in your skin. They’ll last until
you’re seared to ashes; whatever persists
or turns to pain between us, they will still
be there. Such permanence is terrifying.”
Annotation
I stumbled across this poem for the first time in my sophomore year of college. I was dating a boy a few years older than I, with tattoos spread across his arms and upper back. I remember being mesmerized by Addonizio's words, how she could capture the simplicity, the beauty of ink etched into skin. <div><br><div>I could hear her voice in my head as I traced the lines in my boyfriend's arms and back. She was right. Permanence is terrifying. But even more terrifying when it does not transfer into the ways we love.<div><br></div><div>Just yesterday a friend asked me to name my favorite poem. I remembered "First Poem For You," how real the words felt, echoing in my head as if they were my own. "I love to kiss / the pictures in your skin."<br><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>
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Kelly Peacock is an accomplished poet and social media expert based in Brooklyn, New York. Kelly has a Bachelor's degree in creative writing from Farieligh Dickinson University and has contributed to many literary and cultural publications. Kelly assists on a wide variety of quote inputting and social media functions for Quote Catalog. Visit her personal website here.
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