I wanted it for years. For many years. My imagination pictured it in various forms at various places. Finally, it blossomed on the lower part of my right foot. In colors, symbolism and complete glamour.
My first tattoo was the product of all search engines, million (at least) Pinterest screenshots, uncompromisingly long discussions with all my girlfriends and finally a meeting with Smokov brothers. Everything that I wanted was melt and refracted through the perspective of Pavel. He drew the perfect poppy on my leg and gave me a day to fall in love with it. A day later I was already in the tattoo chair in the studio. Contrary to all yoga practices for breathing, that I am well aware of, I inhaled and exhaled the compressed from the tension air heavier and faster than when I was in delivery.
Pavel welcomed me with a wide smile, infected me with brilliant mood and gave me courage. All of these volatilized as a morning dew under the July sun at the very moment I heard his machine working. Even prior feeling the needles on my flesh I felt my eyes widely open as those of a child in front of a candy-floss and standing still without the natural reflex of blinking, gazing at the machine with the needles. Except that there was no candy-floss. I sighed deeply over my earlier imprudence to pass over the bottle of wine in the kitchen, the matured whiskey under the sink, the validol in the drawer, the morning prayer, the three times turning round heading south and spitting over shoulder and simply embraced my faith for the next two hours.
With more tortured expression than that of Mother Theresa and a pulse that has long passed the speed of acceleration in the CERN collider, I welcomed the first touch with the machine on my leg. Then followed minutes, that I still claim to be hours, bluish by lack of oxygen (I just have forgotten that I can breathe), nails stuck in the upholstery (which I later on found out that have remained in there) and finally…a masterpiece at the perfect place lower on my right.
The interpretations about the poppy are as many as the nationalities spread throughout the world. My poppy manifests the power, beauty and eternal love. It is this accessory that I want to always wear with me – as the stars in the night sky, as the smile of the face of a child, just as my poppy.
