I have a tattoo of you in my heart

I have a tattoo of you in my heart-
no one else can see it,
but it's right there on the inside.
If I concentrate, I can almost feel it:
A peculiar raised rawness,
like a cattle brand might leave;
the nerves all burnt and exposed,
as if singed by a sadistic cigarette wielder.

Funny thing is, I don't remember signing up for a tattoo

Though I do recall a lot of pain, one night;

remember thinking, I wasn't going to make it

through till the sunrise;
doesn't the worst pain always come

in the blackness before dawn,

and I was surprised to find
I'd survived the worst of it.

But now that I have your sign inside of me,
the bar code of independence is void,

as if my soul had been sold;

and nobody ever comes around me now-

how useless can one human being become,

and still go on existing?

I think of it now as a kind of failed science experiment;

for even lab animals are painlessly destroyed,

when their usefulness has reached an end.

But human beings must suffer through

to the very end, of their religion's required martyrdom-

And you are so heartless, my faith of one.