Jun 1
Tattoo #21
So, I’m now up to twenty-one tattoos. It’s funny, to me, how my tattoos have evolved since I started three years ago. Images that are metaphors, then words that reflect the noise in my head. Tattoos that show the light and dark in me, the last three years, pleasure and depression, written on my skin.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about why I’ve marked myself this way, to this degree. Much of it is my odd devotion to transparency, the idea that anyone can look at my tattoos, and my writing, and see the most honest parts of me. Part of loneliness is wearing a mask, pretending to be something different than what’s inside. A person can be lonely around friends, lonely with a lover, if they’re wearing a mask all the time. I want people to be able to “see” me if they want to look. I never felt lonely around Sara (the ex) when I could be transparent, and she loved me anyway. It’s a better feeling than any drug, to be known and loved without a mask. Unfortunately, with me and Sara, she looked inside and didn’t want some of what she saw. I admittedly tried to hide things I figured she wouldn’t like, as I honestly never wanted to be without her. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. I think part of me doesn’t want that to happen the same way again. So, I write the way I write, I wear my insides on the outside for anyone who cares to see. Now, I have twenty-one tattoos, twenty-one acts of transparency…
This tattoo is another Elliott Smith lyric from a really elegant song, A Passing Feeling. I love the song because it so perfectly describes what it’s like when life absolutely does not feel good, and no matter what, that feeling will not go away. The song is so spectacularly honest, and plainly put. It’s very much how I’ve felt for so long, I’m stuck here waiting for a passing feeling. I think the song also describes the idea that a person doesn’t start out feeling stuck, astonishingly depressed. It’s a result of things quickly and steadily going to Hell. It’s not how I want to feel, but it’s honest to say that I feel it. The feeling will pass, or it won’t. It’s kind of odd, I’m struggling and waiting to feel right again, both at the same time.
2 comments
2 Comments so far
Another awesome tat, Mike.
The photo doesn’t reveal what body part it’s on.
Neck? Cause that’s making a very conscious choice where you want to hang your hat in corporate America, young man. 🙂
“Well the many hands began to scan around for the next plateau
Some said it was in Greenland and some say Mexico
Others decided it was nowhere except for where they stood
Those were all just guesses, wouldn’t help you if they could”
; )