I'd wanted to get a tattoo since I was 18 years old. I loved the idea of carrying art on my body with me wherever I went and was drawn to literary-themed tattoos. Because I had so many different ideas ...

Getting your first tattoo rarely happens in a perfectly calm, logical moment. More often, it arrives wrapped in adrenaline and emotion, with the sense that something meaningful is about to happen.

At midnight this past Friday, I was scrolling through Twitter and settled again on the Diablo social page. For the past month, I had really and truly been considering going to Dallas, Texas, for the ...