The Christmas tattoo (Marcella Boccia)

In Dublin's fog, where the air smells of rain and history,I sit in a chair, my hand outstretched,waiting for the needle to pierce the skinlike a promise made in the dark.A Brazilian artist, hands steady with the weight of ink and time,leans over my palm,his fingers tracing the outline of an echo—an arpa negra, black harp,its strings pulled taut with the music of my heart,played on the notes of a Christmas that has never been mine.He hums in the silence,the hum of distant shores,the sound of a life lived elsewhere.The ink begins to bloom like winter roses,curling, curling,until the harp rests there,quietly, on the back of my hand—a reminder,a symbol,something ancientin a place that feels too new.It is Christmas—but the cold winds of winter are not the ones that carve this into me.It is the warmth of summers spent in foreign cities,the warmth of a life that has always felt out of reach,and the distance of those who never stayed long enoughto teach me how to love myselfwithout apology.The tattoo is an arpa negra,an island in the sea of skin,a song I will never hear but can always feel.It is the echo of my longing,my refusal to belong,to be one thing,to be anythingbut this—a pulse of a place that never existed in me.I watch it as it settles into my skin,its lines sharp and bold,a rebellion against the fragile breath of the year.It is Christmas, yes—but I have something that no gift could ever give me:an arpa negra on my hand,the black strings of a songI was born to play,but never learned to sing.And as the ink settles into my veins,as I leave the tattoo shop behind,I am both complete and empty—marked in ways no one can seebut the hand that holds it all togetherin a world that would rather I forget.