Change The Moon To An Eye

Drunk. High. In a bathroom tattooing myself with a homemade needle on a part of my body only clearly seen in a reflection. Somehow my left hand was steady enough, while my right missed being used. It felt as though my favorite fingers were confused why such an important task was given to their bumpy, clumsy brother with half the motor skills. Did i mention it was 10 a.m.?

Back to the mirror. Back to the gaunt-faced, extraterrestrial body sitting on the sink. Back to the half-empty Burnasty bottle that's cheap enough to sit in a thrift store. Back to the black india ink blots that fall from needletip to porcelain.

Drip, drip, drop.

The colors that i bleed are no longer red, they're black, the color of the abyss. The things that i'd been asking of myself were killing me. I had made success, and climbed mountains, all the while the colors that swarmed my mind had turned gray. I was so focused on everything outside of myself i forgot to ask myself how i felt. I forgot what it felt to be happy.

I was living with my pops, paying him rent every month. School was dropped by the end of the first semester. I was working a 5:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. shift five days a week. I was making what I considered decent money. Standard, boring. I had left school because the language I was interested in was much more realistic to me. Hues, blues, melodies, and tattoos. It's not heard in your standard university classroom. And, most importantly, it made sense. This dialect, I spoke in my free time. When I went to my drum lessons with Mark, when I went home and wrote of the sparks. Constantly, I was in the middle of a project. Music, photography, painting, etching, moving, loving. Losing myself in the image, the colors that I encrypted outnumbered the spectrum of vision. All of my personal success was drowning in an environment created by complacency. Depression is funny like that, and the way I operate through it is certainly uncommon. Think the endless, anxious turmoil of your windshield wipers agianst a thunderstorm. If it is common, I dont hear about it. Either way, lets coin the term; Successful Depression.

Suppose a man steps in front of a mirror. He stares forward, he stares back. Eventually, the man on the otherside becomes he who is locked in reality, and he himself waits forever for the moment to turn. This is called a feedback loop. 400 meters around a track, day in and day out. Or a needle in a groove that always spins. A body in motion stays in motion, its physics. Ground is constantly being gained, thats what keeps you in the rotundra. Don't find yourself waiting for the reflection, the reflection will always wait for you.

This was my first tattoo, if you dont count eight year old me sticking myself by mistake with a pen. Theres still a small, blue dot in my forearm. Yes, this was my first tattoo, my first anything. Long before my nose ring, ear piercings, and the first of three tattoos that own real estate on my body. Before the 12 stitches that rented my left hand, or the hooked scar below my left pec that has a cousin on my right forearm, both a memory of a new years in L.A. This became a real life project that required dedicated research. Dedicated research led to gathering resources, which is barely one step before tool construction. After the 80's montage set to The Doors' L.A. Woman unfolded, there i was. Cottonballs, a bottle of 90% ethanol alcohol, one homemade needle, a jar of black india ink, some smoke, some drank. Skipping the part, of course, showcasing the young girl from the night before who preceeded to stab me over, and over until i angrily sent her naivety away into the still night, for treating me like a pincushion. I kept thinking, "I'm a fighter, a boxer, i can take pain, ive got cracks in my face for Christ's sake, but FUCK this hurts!"

The pupils dilate and the whole world becomes a mere hush. So much focus for such a small task. Just a tiny tattoo on the edge of the shoulder. Not more than half an inch either direction. The shape had no meaning to the artist upon conception, but completion of an artist's work always brings about a new dimension of thought. It's a triangle, the shape with the most stability, and strength. Also, the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, known as delta. Something that represents change; a difference. Something eighteen year old me needed desperately. Something i had not realized. Eye to eye, flesh to glass. The word is clear in both minds; CHANGE (or die).