Turn ons:

But I have a second dream. It doesn't live within these four walls, but in a big, old atlas I bought at a flea market. Its pages are worn thin from my constant turning. I don't just want to do tattoos. I want to travel. I imagine it so clearly I can almost smell the scent of foreign cities on my skin.

Turn offs:

I see myself in a small studio somewhere in Berlin. Rain is falling outside, and my machine is buzzing inside. I'm lining a line from a verse by a client's favorite German poet on their forearm. They tell me its story in broken English, and I weave it into every single stroke.

About me:

hi! My name is Alika. I'm from Serbia and I'm 18 years old. My room is my fortress and my workshop. Other girls have posters of actors on their walls; I have sketches plastered over every free space: intricate geometric patterns I dreamed up at night, realistic roses that need to look alive, ancient dragons in old-school style. On my shelves—not makeup and trinkets, but pots of ink, sheets of practice skin, and dozens, hundreds of sharpened pencils. My hands are always stained with ink; under my nails, a faint, almost erasable blackness. My secret sign. My second skin.