Ja Rule Pain Is Love Tattoo __top__ -

Pain is not love. Pain is what fills the space where love should be. And a twenty-year-old tattoo is just a scar you chose to name.

“My wife hates it,” he said, feeding the quarter into a machine that smelled of bleach and broken dreams. “Says it’s a red flag you get before you’re old enough to know better.”

“I got it the summer my cousin died,” he said. “Terrence. We were like this.” He crossed two fingers, then tapped the tattoo. “He got shot over a pair of boots. Stupid. The kind of stupid that follows you into the shower, into your sleep, into the way you smell cheap cologne and think of a casket.” ja rule pain is love tattoo

Marcus was gone. But his tattoo stayed with me, faded and wrong and truer than any fresh ink.

“I don’t get it removed because my wife wants me to,” he said, zipping his duffel bag. “I keep it to remember that I used to be wrong. That I thought love had to hurt to count. That I thought suffering was the same as caring.” Pain is not love

I did. Ja Rule, before the beefs, before the memes, before he became a punchline. Just a raspy voice singing about bleeding for someone.

He stood up, the bag heavy on his shoulder. “My wife hates it,” he said, feeding the

I stopped folding.