Words to Live By

Published at Killing the Buddha on August 26, 2015.

I got another tattoo. A black and gray owl with wise eyes rests on my right bicep. A locked heart lays on its chest. Its claws grasp the key. I get tattoos to mark the transitions, those shifts in my life that suggest nothing will ever be the same. Tattoos make endings and beginnings concrete. My skin changes. Inner turmoil becomes visible, and I move on.

I got another tattoo because I felt moorless and lost. Maybe, I could force a transition with a the sting of the needles and the buzz of the tattoo gun. Maybe, I would wallow less. Maybe, there would be progress.