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Corporealize

I'm a big fan of bodymod. Perhaps the piercings give that away. But there's more to it than the piercings themselves (delightful as they are). Beyond the metal, beyond the ink, there's a culture of unlike minds who use tools like these to say things we know not what and know all too well. Behind every sleeve and ring there's a story, however exotic, however banal; stories of the act and the decision leading up to it, stories of the healing process, stories of people's reactions, interactions, stories about society and reclaiming humanity, stories about a life lived, about a body lived in, about stories about stories about the world in which we abide, eat, breath, love, and die.

About a year ago I got a double nape piercing much like this one. To anticipate the question, no it didn't hurt at all. Getting pierced typically feels like the pinch from a needle (er, duh) followed by warm flushing like from shock or getting slapped. Depending on the location and the person, sometimes it'll hurt more than that (my earlobes hurt far worse than the cartilage piercings, contrary to most people's experiences). But for the nape, nothing. There was some weird friction while inserting the bar, but not even the flushing sensation, let alone pain. Your neck feels a little stiff afterwards, but that goes away after a few hours.

I had been meaning to post pictures, though I wanted to wait for it to heal entirely first. It healed, which isn't a given for napes, but it's always been a bit finicky. This last year's been filled with too much stress, too much coffee, not enough sleep, not enough rest. I wore a suit to my sister's funeral a few weeks back and they started acting up again. This morning I woke up and one of the beads had come loose in the night. I found it later, but before that I had a long think. It wasn't rejecting, just to be clear, and it didn't hurt or anything, though it was starting to boil and look bad even though it felt fine.

And so I've decided it's prolly best to let them go before the damage is permanent. Deciding whether to let a piercing go vs trying to recover it is as hard as the decision whether to get them in the first place. But like that decision, once you've chosen, you can tell when it's the right thing (before it's too late, even). Perhaps I'll get them redone some day, or perhaps another story will come along before then. It's a wide wide world, with the wind at my back, in which to eat, breath, love, and abide.