LOVE HURTS

I, Totenkopf

A love letter to Graham Platner from his favorite tattoo

Photo by Theo Crazzolara on Unsplash

Dearest Schatzi,

You chose me! It was 2007 and I had been hanging out on a small tattoo parlor wall in Split, Croatia for years, no future, going nowhere, seldom looked at and even less often considered and then only briefly by sullen Skinheads and other neo-Nazi types. Despite what some say about me, I am proud of my military past and never got over falling out of favor only because, as they say, the winners write history.

And then you chose me!! And everything changed!

You say now you were “very inebriated” when you chose me. I don’t know about that. So many people are on something when they get tattoos, I couldn’t tell the difference anymore, but I was overjoyed when you picked me out of all the hundreds of other designs you could have picked. And when you decided to have me put over your heart, I knew we had something special. Years later you said you picked me only because I “looked cool” but I know you saw something deeper in me.

In the years after you chose me, you frequently showed me off to your male friends and female “acquaintances.” Those females never made me feel insecure, because I knew where your heart lay: right beneath me. Some of those acquaintances are now saying you called me “My Totenkopf.” Damn right he did, bitches! Those were the good years. You were proud of me, even dancing shirtless at your brother’s wedding to show me off. By the way, you were lip-syncing to a Miley Cyrus song. Talk about necessary apologies! We’re all still waiting for an apology for that video! Talk about crimes against humanity!!

Well, last year you had to hide me. Had me covered with another tattoo. I understand why. You had become a politician. I had to go along with it, and did so willingly, because of the Three Laws of Totenkopfs. Here they are in case you forgot:

1. A Totenkopf may not injure a politician or, through inaction, allow a politician to come to harm.

2. A Totenkopf must obey the orders given to it by a politician except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A Totenkopf must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

Clearly, my existence would harm yours based on the Three Laws. So I obeyed orders. This is the life, so to speak, we have chosen.

Well, I guess it worked. You knocked Janet Mills out of the race in the Democratic primary. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and others have endorsed you. And polls show you leading the incumbent Maine Senator Susan Collins in a potential race for her Senate seat. And given the current elected politicians in Washington D.C. you might actually look good by comparison.

Maybe you’ll win and maybe not, who knows. But either way, I still love you, and in your heart, I know you still love me. So I’m still here, under your shirt, under the covering tattoo and most of all still under your skin. Waiting to re-emerge when the time is right.

Now and forever,

Your Totenkopf

Ich möchte für immer mit dir zusammen sein

PS, you might want to stop with the shirtless pics. I mean you’re not in your 20s or even your 30s anymore and gravity is a bitch. Ich Liebe Dich!!

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