From The End To The Beginning To The End // 22/01/05

And what I find myself hoping most
Is that this time things will be different
Not for any reason unassailable
But for a reason undeniable
Because this time
Is the first time
I’ve tried
After 13 failures

I remember thinking in college that if I were to ever get a tattoo it would be the Ourobouros. The cyclical concept it embodies felt then the only constant in my life. That creation begets destruction. That the end is written in the beginning. That humanity will consume itself until there is no self to consume, no self to do the consuming.

Bending over
to fix your sandals, surprised
by ink you paid for
staining the notch of your heel.
The cycle repeats.

In the 5 years since then, my heart still reveres the Ouroboros. Distant as it is from my skin, the thought of the tattoo itself has been etched into my mind. I find myself caught off guard by its prevalence, its endurance. Catching my own mind wandering back to that serpent outline–

–who is doing the catching if not the mind?–

–thinking “Has long enough been long enough?” How many years are needed to prove persistence? The sun rises and falls, but there is no guarantee. That is the guarantee.

The burden is not on the years to decide, but on the decider to be satisfied. Satisfied enough to make the decision. Satisfied enough to perhaps bear being wrong.

Happy New Year — here’s to cycles repeating, to cycles completing.