Over the past 24 months scalpels have danced across my skin
I have plotted many unexecuted deaths, the most significant being my own. I have also been to Denmark. For those of you who attended public school, that is a country in Europe that is completely independent of Holland, Finland and Norway.

I guess I still have to work a bit on the caustic sarcasm.

I bear scars over my heart, on my leg, and on my ankle
and a new set of scars, aquired in Copenhagen in the form of a Scarab beetle. Never been one for the typical tattoo, I had to go for scarification. More PAIN more BLOOD: right up my alley.

A funny thing the scarab beetle. It is actually a dung beetle, and I wear it on my body. It takes a similiar place as the Phoenix because it spontaneously arose from a piece of shit. Fitting. It was a creature of great significance to the ancient egyptians.

In pharoanic, the scarab hyroglyph is a verb standing for "change" or "become." This is why I will wear it forever. It is time for me to Become.

I stand on the edge of adulthood looking forward and back. Behind me lies anger and spite. An anger so sharp and tightly focused that it could rend and destroy. Ahead of me lies a future of moderation and more measured and rational revenges. Behind me are two seperate halves to the whole. One half, of kindness and benevolence. This half would do anything for anyone. This half was willing to see the best in everyone. One half, of hatred and rightous retribution. This half would do Anything to one who had fucked with me. This half saw no humanity in its opponent. This half was patient and measured if necessary, white hot and explosive if necessary. This half saw no humanity, only opponents, only scales that needed to be evened. This half was emotionless, precise, and measured. This half dropped the hammer, many times 5's or 10's of years after the original slight.

I shall Become.

In my future I see a whole being. My two halves of darkness and light fused into a single creature of grey. From the light I hope to keep the kindness, the acceptance, the hope and some small remainder of innocence long lost. From the darkness I shall always have power. The power to resist, the power to remain, the power to deal with ass-wipes everywhere. But in the whole being, this power shall be tempered. I have learned that I do not need to rend and harm and destroy a psyche or a body to attain just compensation. I have learned that sometimes a simple and benign comment such as "Yeah right" will suffice. Mind you that would mean I was in an exceptionally forgiving mood. I will not begrudge anyone who will take a more aggressive stance than me, I understand it, for long have I lived there myself. I have simply found it is not the best place for me to be right now. From the darkness, I know that no one will ever take advantage of me and get away with it completely unscathed. From the light, I know that I must take the chance that someone takes advantage of me as a risk of new relationships.

This is my balance.

My future holds new insights and adventures. It still holds more PAIN and BLOOD.

My road is my own, I do not ask you to follow me.

I know my future holds these two things.

First, the second bit of body art which shall take the form of a brand of a phoenix. Now in body branding of this sort, they do not make a brand and slap it on you like in an old John Wayne movie, rather they draw the brand on your body with something very hot, say a soldering iron, in the same way they draw a tatoo on with a needle gun. Phoenix-Rebirth, you see the theme here. Pain and Blood.

Second, an Indian ritual known as a Sun Dance. Quite the ordeal here. Four days of starving and sweat lodges, praying and dancing, culminating in a body peircing with leather thongs in the chest or the back which are then torn free of the body. A Sun Dance is a rite of passage. It is an entry into adulthood. For me it will be the rising of the phoenix, the new life coming from the ashes of the old. I will always have the experience burned into my soul to walk with me. I will always have the scars to remind me. The scars to go along with those I placed above my heart, and in my left thigh, and on my right ankle, in darker, more dangerous and less healthy times. This time it will have been done in a more healthy, spiritual environment. It will also serve as a final penance for myself, a first step to something I have never really known towards myself or others:

Forgiveness.

Pain and Blood. You see the theme here.

This is my path, some of you will read this and find it far to stark and cruel. Others of you will find it mild compared to the punishment you have invoked upon your own bodies. I do not measure, I do not compare, I do not compete. I merely wish to be.

So I can BECOME whatever is next in this world for me.