I hate that my art exists on bodies that I hate

In my first year of university, I felt a new sense of freedom in my life. A sense that I could do absolutely anything that I wanted to. The world was my oyster, I could do anything and be anyone. There were no repercussions from my parents any longer.

So I decided to buy a ‘stick and poke’ kit from amazon, for £17.98 including postage. It cost barely anything, and I had my student loan to cover every little thing that I needed . It came within a matter of days, and had everything I needed to create my first tattoo (which I had absolutely none of yet).

The box sat on my bedroom shelf for a whole 11 days before I dared to open it - at 3am. It was one of those typical days where I was overloaded with university work and decided the only way I could possibly get it all done was by not sleeping for a night. After completing my written tasks, and before watching my dreaded assigned film (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, 2017) I decided I needed something to break up my work, a little fun, if you may. I also had one of those sudden urges (which if you know me, you’ll be used to) to have an appearance change. I have these urges every now and then to just… change. Whether it be dying my hair, changing it dramatically, or even cutting it myself - I now had a new option.

So with this urge to do something fun and different, without leaving the confinement of my halls bedroom, I grabbed the box of my shelf and began to unpackage it. Inside was:

• gloves

• needles

• transfer paper

• ink cups

• fake skin

• a holder for the needles

• seven different shades of ink

As you can see, it had absolutely everything I needed to tattoo myself.

For a long time prior, and still now, I had a high level of attraction to the moon and the stars. To the night. I knew that I wanted a piece of the night on my body - so a star it was. I sanitised my arm and then with a biro I had lying on my desk, I drew my typical star that I would draw on anything on my left shoulder. I carefully squeezed black ink into one of the little cups and removed a needle from its’ packaging. I began to carefully poke into the skin, point by point, before I had gone around the entirety of the star. I wiped away the excess ink, only to find that I had tattooed an incredibly faint star on myself that could barely be seen, so I went around it a few more times.

849 days later, I can barely see that star. It’s simply a faint memory of my first year self’s stupidity. I didn’t tattoo myself again until a few months later.

What was unknown to me, was how many people would be excited by the prospect of getting a free tattoo from somebody who could barely do them. My non-existing talent became a favourite. And before I knew it, i’d given out 9 tattoos to people I’d known for a matter of months for free. They ranged from stars to hearts to symbols to illustrations from book covers. Some were surprisingly okay, some were just okay, and some were diabolical. Yet these people smiled at me happily as I poked into their skin and made a mess of their body.

I always wonder if one day any of these people will find me and go “Hey Isobel, look what you did to me! I want compensation!”. And would I have any compensation to give? No. I’m unemployed. Still.

Now the thing is, for the first 9 tattoos I gave (I did give some after which I’m happier about), I never spoke to those people again after late 2024. It was either a silly argument, or some level of betrayal. I wouldn’t say I hate all of them (is the title clickbait?), but I would say I’m unhappy that my art still resides on their body till this day. Except for some of them, they deserve shit art imprinted on them till the day they die.

Now, do I regret giving these tattoos? No. And yes. I enjoyed giving these tattoos, I felt a bond create between me and those people as I poked deep into their skin. I felt love. I felt cherished. But I wish there was not a piece of me on them forever.