Tattoos

I was sixteen when I first walked into that tattoo parlor. The mere smell of the place, which I later learned to be witch hazel, was what made me absolutely sure of my decision. But of course I couldn't look too excited considering I was still a minor, so I played it cool pretending I knew what I was doing. The purr of the needle on skin was intensifying steadily as was my heart.

Eventually, my future tattoo artist, Mike, asked me if I needed any help. I knew what I had to say but was so unsure of how to say it, to go about it, his reaction, my embarrassment if rejected, while still maintaining the same level of "cool" for my own way to save face. While all of this was going through my head, I must have looked as if I was about to have a stroke. Mike had to have noticed my silent explosion for after a few seconds of staring at me, he generously put those thoughts of my insanity aside and simply asked if I knew what I wanted.

I had been thinking about this for a while, and I knew every detail, every curve and shape of this tattoo by heart. This one was special, not just for decoration. Although my mind is still temporarily skewed by adolescence, I still prefer to have some meaning to my impulses.

January 20, 2007 was the day and I sped to my new place of solace, for from then on you could catch me there on a bad day. All the way there I blasted heavy metal and screamed the words feeling the adrenaline already pulsing through my veins. I remember looking at myself in my rearview mirror giggling, what will my mom say?

Two hours and a million pints of blood later, I am freshly tattooed and I couldn't be more excited - or in more pain. This time I looked into the mirror knowing I did the right thing for me. It represented all the things I couldn't say, couldn't reach, couldn't quit feel. A lot of people say I'm bound to regret it, but I don't have one regret in my life yet. And when I'm older at least I'll have that memory of how exactly I felt, who I was, and what I was going through. I can always revisit myself at sixteen no matter what view I have about life in the next twenty or fifty years.

I may be different and occasionally bump heads with our society's general view on how kids should live but I am proud of that and who I have become because of it. This tattoo represents Plato's theory on reality "The Allegory of the Cave," the character