my most disliked tattoo by those i love is the ferrari i have on my left forearm. while it may look like i may be some car junky, ferrari enthusiast, i got the tattoo because of the salvation i found in frank ocean’s white ferrari. that song is so special to me & it’s one of the most methodical & planned out tattoo i have on my body; i knew, even in my preteens, that i would get a tattoo to honor that song.
i get trolled on it a lot. it gets called an “eye sore”, “stupid”, & “ridiculous”, but it’s not any of those things to me. the entire meaning of the song is about enjoying what you have when you have it. point blank. the white in “white ferrari” symbolizes purity & innocence of the duration of time he was in love in & the “ferrari” symbolizes how rich and valuable that time was for frank, since ferraris are expensive cars. this song is so sincere, rare, & raw; to me, it deserves a place on my body.
from 14-18, i had a great love. we were blissfully naive & i will never forget the feelings of that love because of this song. white ferrari brought me closure to that relationship; this song was an everlasting & warm embrace to me from someone who was never meant to be in my life forever.
the ending of the song is my driving factor of my tattoo (no pun included). the last few lines of the song are about the pain the coexists alongside the awareness that you have to let go off something. “i’m sure we’re taller in another dimension” is one of my favorite lyrics of all time. while i was moving on from that first love, this line implied that there is nothing left in this universe for us, but there is granted grace is believing that maybe in another universe we would’ve worked out. holding on to potential that somewhere out there we held on to our promises gave me the needed courage & forgiveness to move on with no bitterness or anger. you can have this idea & hope for people, but that will always be a version of them or y’all that doesn’t exist in THIS dimension.
i’m the first to admit i wasn’t the best girlfriend. that relationship took A LOT out of both of us, and at the end, it was me begging him to make it work. frank says, “you say we’re small & not worth the mention. you’re tired of movin’, your body’s achin’”. & i know my ex boyfriend could find his truth in that. at the end, it was all over for him—there was nothing left to discuss, nothing left to fix, & nothing left to salvage. he was the one that put his foot down & ended our relationship when it was dead; one day i should thank him for that, it’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me because i would never have THIS life without him calling it quits.
for a bit, i thought he was wrong for making his decision. i was sure we’d get back together, so the lyrics “you dream of walls that hold us imprisoned. it’s just a skull, least that’s what they call it” was my plea for his mind to change. i believed that the narrative he made up in his head about our relationship wasn’t reality & that those thoughts are were to blame on our break up. he was right to end the relationship, i was just too worried about the idea of our relationship than what it actually was. & i believed that, if he one day, he changed his mind, we’d be “free to roam”, but that wasn’t our journey anymore, & that became more than just okay to me.
later on in my college years, my best friend ethan played this song in his car while we were on our way to chipotle. i blubbered over how much i loved the song, even before i was in a relationship. we both smoldered in between choruses & felt every word frank sang. my love for frank ocean and the song grew alongside my relationship with ethan. i always told him that even if our friendships faded into oblivion one day, the love i have for our friendship will also live within the song, white ferrari. ethan brought new meaning to the song: what my life turned out to be after the fog settled. good things will eventually come to you, you just have to be patient & wait it out.
this song is beautiful to me & while people assume that i got it off a limb or say that it doesn’t look good, they fail to realize how liberating this tattoo became to me. still to this day, the ending of that relationship laid the foundation for the person i am now & all the successes i’ve had in the past three years since the break up. the love i had for him is everlasting & lives within me still. white ferrari is about the haunting truth that love is an indestructible force to reckoned with. i love my tattoo & i should start doing a better job of defending it. this one song, made by a man who will never know my name, gave me the internal chance & closure to move on—i welcomed the new year fulfilled because the world didn’t end when a 17 year old boy dumped me.
“i will care for you still & i will forever. that was my part of the deal”
with all my love,
♡steff
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