I regret my first tattoo. My dad took me to get it at 18, and I now wish he never had.

• When I turned 18, my tattoo-obsessed dad took me to get my first ink.
• I got the words "live by love" tattooed across my chest, and years later, I don't like it.

My dad was always obsessed with tattoos. He was frequently spending hours at tattoo parlors, adding ink to any exposed inch of skin.

By the time I was in high school, tattoos covered both of his arms, and he started working on his legs. In my senior year, he and his tattoo artist were slowly inking a scene from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" on his calf and shin.

When I reached the legal age, I decided to follow in my father's footsteps and get inked, too. I wish I hadn't.

I started brainstorming tattoo ideas when I was 17

When I was in my junior year of high school, my dad told me I could get a tattoo when I turned 18 if I wanted one. He even told me he would take me to his artist. Without really thinking, I said I wanted one.

Looking back now, I'm sure I wanted to please my macho father. Growing up gay, I always felt like a disappointment in his eyes. I wasn't the sports-loving son he thought he'd have. We shared practically nothing in common. I figured getting a tattoo just like my dad would bond us in some way. I figured it would make him proud of me — finally.

So I started planning. I wanted to get something meaningful, but what's meaningful to a teenager?

In an ignorant, adolescent way, I made it my mission to find something important to me. I dove into literature, read poems, listed my favorite movie quotes, and researched the meanings behind various symbols. I was hell-bent on getting the perfect tattoo.

Eventually, I found the poem "Dive for Dreams" by E. E. Cummings. A portion stood out: "Trust your heart/ if the seas catch fire/ and live by love/ though the stars walk backward."

The poem was about trusting your heart and fate when achieving your dreams. As a gay kid desperately dreaming about leaving his closed-minded suburban town, the poem made perfect sense.

"Live by love" attracted me, and I knew that I found it; that was going to be my first tattoo.

For some reason, I figured getting this tattoo across my chest was the best idea

I truly cannot remember why I thought getting my first tattoo across my chest would be a good idea. Maybe I wanted to outdo my dad and show him I could handle the pain. Maybe I thought it was in style, not realizing that styles changed. Either way, the decision was made.

My dad took me to his tattoo parlor on Staten Island in New York City. The artist was this bulky, biker-type man who scared me to the bone. When he drew the outline of the tattoo on my chest, I thought it was too flashy and too big. It was a bit ostentatious.

But being the chronically anxious teen I was, I nodded my head and told the tattoo artist it looked great — somehow forgetting that this tattoo would be on my body forever.

When I was done, my dad told me it looked great. He seemed proud; I beamed.

Over a decade later, I wish I didn't get the tattoo

Chest tattoos are out, and the cursive style is too flashy for me, so these days, I keep my chest tattoo covered. I rarely wear V-neck T-shirts so that people won't see my ink.

When people do see my tattoo, and I tell them it says, "Live by love," I almost always get the same question: "Live, laugh, love?" You know, the words that fill every home-decor sign that all suburban mothers have. I always force out a laugh.

The truth is my father and I still have a fraught relationship. The tattoo didn't heal the trauma. The tattoo didn't bring us closer.

When I look in a mirror and see the tattoo, sometimes I cringe and wish my father had never taken me to get the ink in the first place.

But I'll never get it removed because the tattoo has taken on more meaning than the Cummings poem. In the end, the tattoo reminds me of my father and the difficult relationship we have. It reminds me of the day we shared one thing in common. And that's something I always want to hold on to.