Upon reading academic resources about the connection between tattooing after trauma (Martines, 2021; Maxwell et al., 2023), my cravings for tattoos during the most intense moments of the aftermath of gendered and sexual violence began to make sense. i was not the only one who sought out the practice of tattooing as a form of healing. This poem explores 'client-practitioner' relationships and the role of pain in the tattoo process. It troubles dualities that position care and healing as pain-free where things that are painful cannot be considered risky, irresponsible, and not part of healthcare. It troubles narratives of health and healing that position regulated professionals and the medical industrial complex as necessary parts of a positive, linear process. Such troubling opens up lines of inquiry into how pain and suffering might need to be fully experienced as a legitimate, indeed, lifesaving part of health, wellness and living with trauma and about how current health insurance programs rooted in capitalist, colonial, white supremacist logics perpetuate harm by restricting access to restorative practices. An exercise in abolitionist reimagining, written from the perspective of a trans, agender, chronically pained and mentally ill artist-researcher, this poem is an invitation to hold space for the truth that interventions filled with love and care may still be painful and reflect on what care is and who is excluded when health systems are labelled as objective and universal. To view the original version of this poem, see the supplemental material section of this article online.
ivan beck (Sun,) studied this question.