A minimalist Saturn: one near-perfect circle, two parallel lines cutting through for rings. It had been my brother’s. At the viewing, I traced the cold, hard curve of it on his forearm.
He died at 29, well before he had a chance to regret this tattoo or any another.
I am not a tattoo person. I’m 38—decidedly too old for that shit. I have no desire for discretionary pain. I got it anyway. My brother was gone, suddenly, somewhere outside my reach. I needed a reference, a place I could point to, some orientation to the person he used to be.
I put it on my ribcage, under my shirt and close to my heart. Secreted it away, away from acquaintances who might ask its meaning. Plus, I needed distance. Some space from his original, intended spot. Memento, not mimicry. I did not want to become his doppelganger.
At first, it was just me and my sister, marked with Saturns in solidarity. A few weeks later, my mom got one. Then someone sent me a photo of my brother’s best friend, his best friend’s wife, and his best friend’s sister, surrounding my brother’s grave, smiling, with Saturns emblazoned on the raw skin of their forearms. It felt cultish, this grief club. Like I’d been inducted into something I did not fully comprehend.
My brother had his secrets, his suicidal ideations. I only found out when they found his body.
On astrology TikTok, they warn against Saturn tattoos. Negative energy. Limited. The planet of rigid boundaries. Consumed by karma and lessons from the past.
Planet means “wanderer” in Greek. In this sense, a planet is distinguished by what it’s not. It’s no star, fixed at one particular point in the galaxy. It orbits. Saturn’s orbits lasts 29 years. This irony is not lost on me.
From our vantage, Saturn is just a speck of light moving across the sky.
I mark the site of grief on my body, as though I could fix it into place. Look: a shaky black line on its underside curve. This is where the needle caught against the bone of my ribcage. Here is where my breath hitched and my lungs gave way, where my heart collapsed in on itself, a dark star imploding.
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Brittany Micka-Foos is a writer living in the Pacific Northwest. She is the author of the short story collection It’s No Fun Anymore (forthcoming from Apprentice House Press, 2025). Her fiction, essays, and poetry have been published in Ninth Letter, Hobart, Witness, Non-Binary Review, and elsewhere. Read more at brittanymickafoos.com