“This tattoo means a lot to me, and my brother did it for me, so it’s hard to make the decision to get rid of it,” he said.
Mark and his girlfriend, Taneia Ruki, had been together for a year before he was sent to prison. “I would end up devastating everyone I met or got close to. They’d be disappointed by something I did or said—I was always hearing ‘that’s devastating,’” he said.
But he hopes the hardest chapters of his life are behind him—erased along with the ink on his face. “I’ve learned from my mistakes,” he added. “I still don’t think people should be judged by the tattoos on their face, but I know it will keep happening unless I do something about it.”
Before his final desperate plea on Facebook, the teenager said people had “laughed in my face” when he asked for work.
The tattoo was created with a homemade gun, using a needle made from a pen spring and powered by a cassette player. Plastic knives and forks were burned into black powder and mixed with toothpaste and water to make the ink.
As Mark looks ahead, he’s determined to turn his life around and build a better future for himself and his family. While the road to redemption may be challenging, he’s taking the first steps by removing the past—literally and figuratively. His story is a reminder that it’s never too late to change, and that the choices we make today don’t have to define who we are tomorrow.