Tattoos-Day : Acceptance

Ink #9: My Brother

Design: Hollow rainbow heart, purple awareness ribbon, and “Smyles” written underneath it

Location: Left Lower Back (A cockeyed tramp stamp?)

When: Winter 2008 – It was a Christmas gift from me

Pain Scale: Four out of ten

Artist: Joey Drada

Story:

As I mentioned last week, my brother is “one of the gays.” When he first told the crazies that is our family, our Dad flipped, our Mom denied it, and our other brother was stoned. I was the only one who applauded him. (This meant I had a shopping and Grey’s Anatomy buddy! Huzzah!)

It took a while for my family to accept him. My mother pulled the hypocritical role and wouldn’t allow him to have his boyfriends over when she allowed my youngest to have his twat-face of a girlfriend actually live with us. My dad decided to take the “Parenting 101” role and was convinced he would grow out if it.

To show them they were all being absolute fuck-os and to show my brother that at least one person in the family accepts him and loves him for the person that he simply is, I got this awareness heart done. As for “Smyles”… His first name is Lucas and his middle name is Myles. So growing up he would run his name together and legitimately thought his middle name was “Smiles”.

He’s queer. He’s here. And damnit, I’m proud of him.