The Truth of Scripture

So, recently since my moving to the City, many people, new and old have been asking me about my tattoos. Long, and I think beautiful script depicting two rather at times odd, but very poignant quotes about how I wish to live my life. As odd as it may seem. In my earlier years I had a rather bad account of cutting myself on the thighs, so that no one would ever see. I still have the scars to this day. So why on my arms? During my more troubling years I started to have desires of cutting my forearms. And one rather auspicious day, I cut myself from my elbow to my wrist on my right arm. Claiming that i must have scratched myself during my sleep.

Sad but true. Then, the person who mattered the most to me at the time, took me aside, and slapped me across the face. He told me that if I needed to do crazy things, then I needed to think long and hard about my consequences, who else is affected when I do something like this, who else suffers, when I make awful decisions that make those around me cry and feel like they don't mean anything at all.

So, after I sadly had to leave that person behind, I moved back to Rochester, and on my birthday, I got the first of my two tattoos.

"A man's errors are his portals of discovery." James Joyce.

Well, with the first one forever inscribed into my skin, I looked longingly at the other arm, wondering if I didn't have the same insurance on me, would I make a mistake? Would I slip up again. Not wanting to be uneven, and for fear of not being strong enough. I went four days later and got my second one.

"A man can be destroyed but not defeated." Ernest Hemingway.

So that's the story of why I'm ink'ed on my forearms. While it's true that I always wanted these, sometimes it's a hard reminder looking at them in the morning realizing why I had gotten them in the first place. Regardless of that though, these quotes, these trails of ink that so eloquently describe me, are my treasures, ones that will follow me to the end of time.