Frankenstein

 REMEMBER, THAT I AM THY CREATURE; I OUGHT TO BE THY ADAM; BUT I AM RATHER THE FALLEN ANGEL, WHOM THOU DRIVEST FROM JOY FOR NO MISDEED. EVERYWHERE I SEE BLISS, FROM WHICH I ALONE AM IRREVOCABLY EXCLUDED. I WAS BENEVOLENT AND GOOD; MISERY MADE ME A FIEND. MAKE ME HAPPY, AND I SHALL AGAIN BE VIRTUOUS.

People often ask me, "what do you have tattooed on your arm?" My response is always the same— "It's a passage from my favorite book, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein."

How can a book impact someone so much that they would want to permanently have the words inked into their skin? I'd like to share why. But, its very personal. And sad. And dark. But sometimes, dark things are beautiful. They connect us. Remind us why light and love are precious.

I immediately felt a connection with the creature in Frankenstein. I'm not going to recap the book. But, if you haven't read it, you should. It's beautiful, utterly beautiful, in the saddest way that… illustrates the complexity of life. The brutal reality of abandonment. The depths of loneliness. The nature of humanity.

I come from darkness. I know that sounds dramatic and intense. But it's true. I've made peace with it. I stand by it bravely, unafraid of what people will think. Only in recent years have I found a happiness that I once dreamed of. But for a very long time, for most of my life, my days were filled with violence. Hopelessness. Abandonment. Drugs. Abuse, both domestic and at the hands of men.

I've seen the dark underbelly of this world. Things that I will never forget. Things that cling to my soul and appear in my dreams. They haunt me. And I believe they will forever. I will never be entirely free of the darkness. But I continue to become stronger…. strong enough to bare it.

I identify with the monster in Frankenstein. Because the things that I have lived through, well, they almost created a monster out of me. It's the age-old debate of nature vs. nurture. If you put an innocent child into a world filled with darkness…if you abandon them—will they become a product of their environment? Or will they somehow forge through? Is there something innate within them that will allow them to overcome the horrors that threaten to pull them under?

The monster in Frankenstein was innately good. Gentle. Smart. But he was abandoned. Thrown to the mercy of the world. And the world is not kind. It was the actions of others that turned him into a monster. It was the harsh abandonment of his creator that sealed his fate. The creature in Mary Shelly's book succumbed to his environment, allowing it to mold him, change him.

I feel strongly that I have struck a balance on the edge of a knife. If one more horrible thing had happened, if I placed on more footstep into the side of darkness…perhaps I would have finally succumbed. I would have turned into the very thing that I had tried so hard to fight against. How long can someone hope for the light? How long can a person crawl through the muck, determined to make it to better days? At what point do you give up? At what point to you concede and become what life has beaten into you?

Somehow, by some unseen mercy, I did not. I kept fighting. But damn, was it close. I have siblings. Not all of them were so lucky. It is a constant thorn, that pricks my spirit, to know that they were lost to their environment, and there's nothing I can do.

I am Mary Shelly's monster. Abandoned by her creators. Left to fend for herself in a dark world. A world filled with evil men that pray on abandoned young women.

In the above passage, the creature is begging Dr. Frankenstein to love him. To accept him. Misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.

Those words are like a flamed arrow to my heart. It's such a simple thing, to love someone, to never forsake them, to cherish a child. And yet, in this harsh world, it is absent. And innocent souls are left to be molded by events out of their control.

Despite my blessed paradise that I have found, the darkness inside stirs. Visiting me at night. Reminding me where I come from. Streaking across my thoughts at random moments.

I was saved. Somehow. The monster in Frankenstein was not. So yes, those words are permanently inked into my arm. Because I will always know how close I came to becoming a monster.

I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel.