would absorb the medication, and then I exhaled the thick smoke like a proud dragon. For the first time, I understood what the word high meant—I was somewhere in the air with my feet on the ground. Perceptions of my surroundings changed slightly, and I started to feel like a character in one of my own stories. Unlike alcohol, which revved me up, pot brought a quiet sense of peace and restfulness, and made me want more.
We replaced alcohol with pot and sometimes mixed the two. I didn’t think it interfered with my Saturday morning practices, and was able to continue training hard without that horrible hangover. By now my parents knew I drank, but they never suspected I was smoking pot. I still had my clean-cut, all-American look—innocent baby face and puppy-dog eyes that could convince anyone I wasn’t doing drugs like the other “stoners”—but I had firmly sunk my teeth into it.
SCARIFICATION IS THE SCRATCHING, CUTTING, OR ETCHING OF DESIGNS, PICTURES, OR WORDS INTO THE SKIN. NOSE PIERCING WAS FIRST DONE 4,000 YEARS AGO IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THE FIRST TONGUE PIERCING WAS SEEN IN AZTEC, MAYAN, KWAKIUTL, AND TLINGLIT TRIBES AS AN ANCIENT BLOOD-DRAWING RITUAL TO PREPARE FOR THE ARRIVAL OF THE GODS. ROMAN WARRIORS PIERCED THEIR NIPPLES TO SHOW STRENGTH, COURAGE, AND BRAVERY, AND BRITISH AND AMERICAN SAILORS WERE KNOWN TO PIERCE THEIRS AS A RITE OF PASSAGE FOR TRAVELING BEYOND A SIGNIFICANT LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE.
The nineties alternative music revolution swept the nation, and I became its greatest fan. Like generations of teenagers before us, we declared our purpose to the world through the notes of the songs we worshipped and the styles and attitudes our music dictated. True to the new grunge, we were unkempt and careless, and looked like we had just rolled out of bed.
I saw the first sign of body modifications’ rise in a man with his nose and tongue pierced at Lollapalooza, the summer’s largest musical festival. I immediately wanted it, drawn to the juxtaposition of hard steel on soft skin. It looked painful and powerful—a spike though the center of a tongue represented physical and mental anguish, as if the wearer were saying, “I had my tongue nailed to say ‘Fuck you and fuck off!’” The idea of expressing myself without using words that betrayed my horrible voice was hugely appealing to me.
The only body piercing place I knew wouldn’t pierce anyone under eighteen years of age, and I was only seventeen. So I decided to pierce my nose on my own, believing I wouldn’t get in trouble as long as I hid it from my parents.
That night I got drunk and removed a thumbtack from a poster on my wall. I marked the spot on my nose, cleaned the dull spike with rubbing alcohol, and slowly pressed it through the skin of my nose. The thick nasal cartilage made it difficult to penetrate all the layers of anatomy, and it hurt more than I had imagined. Every time I attempted to puncture that sensitive target, my eyes watered in blinding tears, but I wasn’t going to let physical pain stand in the way of my identity. A grueling hour of rigorous pushing passed by, but the skin fought against me. It wasn’t working.
I stood squinting at the mirror through watery vision as blood leaked from the hole. I twisted the thumbtack, and tried to wiggle it through the flesh. Finally, after four hours, it popped through to the other side. I was filled with relief and exhilaration! I was thrilled with the prize of having a green thumbtack sticking out of my nose. Now came the difficult part—I needed to remove the thumbtack and replace it with a steel hoop. I figured this was low-level surgery, and nothing was going to stop me. I poured a mixture of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide on the bloody area as a fizzy, stinging, painful wash. After I removed the thumbtack I couldn’t find the punctured hole, and a maroon-colored river rushed down my face. Sheer determination guided me in threading a hoop through the hole I had created, and I looked in the mirror, thrilled with the result of my work. This was my first physical tribute to teenage angst. As I admired my new prized possession, I thought, Well, I like it, but . . . this isn’t enough, and immediately thought about other places to pierce.
I went to wash the blood from my face and forgot about the protruding steel and slammed my hands into my raw nose. It felt like getting punched in the face. Sleeping was impossible, as I’d roll over and wake up in stinging pain, but my identity was worth a few sleepless nights.
The only other body part I could pierce without my parents knowing was my navel. Like a surgeon, I sterilized the area and marked the location to dissect the skin. The pain was worse than it was with the nose, and I realized this tool wasn’t sharp enough to penetrate all the epidermal layers. I searched all the sharp objects in my house that could tear through a stomach and decided on a safety pin. It had enough metal surface for my thumb to securely apply pressure. My stomach quivered as the sharp pin stuck into my flesh. The nerves of my skin sent signals to my brain begging me to stop, but I didn’t care; my pain receptors didn’t understand the things cool kids had to do. I took a deep breath and pushed the pin, slowly drilling into the dermis. A dark maroon pool filled the entrance around the safety pin and blood trickled down, reminding me of a watercolor painting I had made as a child. I was happy to have hit blood.
My navel looked gruesome, but I continued to push into the pain like I was popping a balloon. I knew the blood meant the operation was halfway done, and I had to see it through. I held my breath and could feel tissue tearing underneath my skin. Was the laceration so intense because I was severing the mystical umbilical cord? Would that operation finally separate the son from the mother? My fingers shook as I tried to finish the job, and it seemed like the needle would never completely puncture through to the other side. The safety pin wasn’t sharp enough either, but it was all I had.
I tried to convince myself I was a machine. I used steady pressure to complete my composition and, many agonizing hours later, tore through to the other side. The temple of my body now possessed a solid spike through its core, and I adored it. I had threaded a safety pin through my stomach and had arrived at perfection. That was my sacrifice to the gods, my own flesh and blood. Like Michelangelo, who carved away from the limestone the bits that weren’t David, I was removing the pieces of flesh that weren’t Joseph.
My navel brought the same repercussions as my nose—gymnastics, jeans, and sleep were agonizing—but I was willing to pay the price because pain defined and symbolized me. Piercing became my new obsession. If I had been a year older, I would have covered myself in glorious steel. I was in love with steel hoops, fascinated with the way a perfect circle with no beginning or end could go through one’s body. I loved the shine of surgical steel and the message it carried: strong, heavy, and abrupt. Once my flesh would turn to dust, those endless circles would be the only remains in my casket. Even after the Earth would burn or freeze or crumble, my steel piercings would forever remain.
I looked in the mirror beyond my eyes, deep into the person I wanted to become. I was building armor protection and scars to tell others, “Stay away, I’m dangerous.” I had dyed my hair jet-black. My pale face under my tarlike hair transformed me into a corpse with a silver hoop through its nose. I couldn’t have been happier. For the first time I was satisfied with my outside appearance, because it started to match the pain of my insides. This was what high school had done to me—as others began their journey into a beautiful and hope-filled world, I grew into a “pretty hate machine.”
I started getting attention everywhere I went. People stared at me and looked either horrified and afraid or fascinated and attracted. It didn’t matter, because I believed I was making a point. I was angry; I was in hell; and now you had to see it. My pain was my fashion, the music was my inspiration, and my body became my masterpiece.
At school I gained confidence from my dark exterior’s “I hate you” attitude,
