“POV.. now why would you get that tattooed? Oh I get it, its like you hold your hand up and it’s technically your POV in the curve of your hand!” The stranger in the red rain jacket exclaims.

They had noticed the black ink scrawl that sits between my thumb and pointer finger.

“Creative thought process, but that’s not it.” I try and offer a smile as I continue scanning their groceries. If I knew this tattoo was going to become such a focal point of conversation, I would have put it elsewhere on my body.

When I got the tattoo, I was being carried on the dopamine waves induced by a pressed pill of ecstasy. I was nostalgic, I wanted to tether myself back to her. After I had been physically separated from her by way of cut umbilical cord, I never saw her again. A doctor speaking a language I now don’t understand pulled me from her and put me on the breast of a foreign blonde woman who had big dreams for me.

This tattoo- It felt like a way to reclaim some ownership of my lost mother. It was really all I had of her.

One of the fluorescent lights twitters above me. I pull myself out of deep thought- They are looking at me quizzically from across the counter. “Well, what does it mean then?”

I finally look back at them and feel an unusual kindredness. I decide to be honest. “Its the initials of my mother”

They tilt their head sideways and take another glance at my grocery scanning hand, fistful of bananas. “You know, thats funny, my Mom has the same initials- well her maiden name at least. She changed her name after moving here to the states with my dad. She had a pretty rough time back in her home country. You know, I heard when she lived there, if you had a baby out of wedlock, you had to hide your pregnancy and they’d take your child…