This Is My Place
My place? It’s a small, dark shithole. A place where it’d be tough bringing my folks, let alone my girl. Still, I’ve got three rooms and a roof over my head. It’s not much, but it gets the job done. Here in this room, it’s just this stool, a large mirror, the boombox I’ve had since I was in middle school, and some lights I rigged up. This is supposed to be the living room, but shit, I call it my ‘posing’ room. For inspiration, I’ve got a couple of posters of bodybuilding greats from the past, to build me up. And a large mirror to scrutinize myself, to tear myself down. Yeah, home, sweet home. So this girl I just started seeing—the other day, she comes over for the first time. She has this shocked look on her face. She asks me why I don’t get a nicer place. A coffee table. A couch. Somewhere she can sit. A coffee table? Couch? Fuck that. What’s next, some silk fucking flowers? Anyway, I tell her there’s always the two chairs in the kitchen… Or my cot. Look, rule number one—and I always say this right from the start—if you want to see me, you get all of me. Everything. Which is a lot, or very little, depending on how you see things. I’m not here to stand still and let the dust settle on my shoulders… Possessions, all the shit you collect—these are the things that tie you down, hold you back. In this world, I don’t have much—just the clothes on my back and this burning desire in my heart. But that’s alright because I’m just passing through… On my way to something bigger.
