When I was fifteen, I was nothing but a punk kid that hung out around a corner, in the alley, by this tattoo shop called "Aces High Tattoo." Almost everyday I would walk by it and think about all the different body mods I wanted to get, and then bitch about the fact that I had so long to go before I turned eighteen.
At A Glance Author Sierra Contact Sierra@bme.anon When Five years ago Artist Spoon Studio Aces High Tattoo Location Flagstaff, AZ I had other friends my age that had tattoos and piercings, but they also had the cool parents that would sign for them to get them.
I had thought about asking my mom for a while, but knowing she was crazy religious, I kept putting it off, knowing that she was going to say no. And I couldn't ask my step dad, the hard worker, clean cut, old fashioned guy that he was. So I just tried to forget about it and focus on playing my bass.
Then one day, my best friend called me and said her mom was taking her to get her eye brow done. Her mom and my mom were good friends, so I figured, I might as well jump on this opportunity and ask to get something done. I knew the lip was out of the question, so I went for the side of the nose. After begging my mom for what seems like forever, I got the "Ok", called my friend back, and went to my room to find as much change as I could to go turn it into one of those "Coin Star" machines.
On our way to the shop, I couldn't believe that I had gotten my mother to let me get a piercing. Even though it wasn't the area on the body I really wanted to get, I still took the nose over nothing. I was so excited that by the time we had gotten there, I felt like I was going to puke. I kept getting all dizzy and light headed, but tried to play it off like I was over tired from not getting very much sleep the night before. I didn't want to look like the idiot kid, who couldn't take a little piercing.
After I watched my best friend get her eyebrow done I figured it would be a piece of cake. She didn't move or flinch at all. She just sat there so relaxed like it was nothing. It was finally my turn so I climbed into the piercing chair trying to make it seem like it was no big deal that I was scared to death that I was going to get a needle shoved into my skin. I was a little calm at first and then the more I sat there, the more I kept thinking about what I was doing. The whole time I was sitting there, I kept thinking, "Why the hell are you doing this?! You hate needles!" My palms were sweating and I kept feeling like I was going to pass out.
The artist marked my nose, and I said I didn't like where it was located three times just so I could kill some time because I was thinking about backing out of it. Finally, I agreed to where he had put the marking and he put the clamp on my nose. I gripped both of my hands onto the side of the chair and held on for dear life. He told me to take a deep breath in, and when I started to let it out, I felt the needle go into one side of my nose and pop out on the other side.
It wasn't like anything I expected it to be. Did it hurt? Yes. But after the needle had gone through my body, it felt like it had this release of something that went over my entire body and it just made me relax.
After that I just sat there fully calm while he put the cork at the end of the needle, and reached for the jewelry to put into my nose. As he put the jewelry in, this is really the only part that hurt, I jumped a little because the corkscrew stud he had put into my nose, cut the inside of my nose a little. I was a little pissed off that my nose had gotten cut, but all in all, I couldn't care too much because I had made it through my first real piercing.
To this day, that is the only piecing I have never taken out or wished I had never gotten. And since that day I have not stopped with the body mods. They have come to be the most important art I own. And I wouldn't trade in any tattoo or any piercing experience I have had for anything. They have become one of the biggest parts of my life.