(no subject)
"I took off my paint-splattered jacket and my shirt, and gazed at myself in the mirror of the airplane restroom. What I saw was something I had only glimpsed before in the eyes of my most adoring lovers: the curves and textures of my skin, the scars and tattoos and lines cut into it painted a picture together, telling a life of wild adventures and undreamable extremes, a story more poignant and thrilling than any other. I was beautiful - beauty itself was incarnated in me, as a vessel of a world of struggles and longing and triumphs bigger than anything that could fit in any book. It was a moment of blinding brilliance but I rested comfortably into it, confident as if I had known through all the squalor and desperation that I was simply being primed for this. And, for once I felt that I could live a hero's life as well as die a warrior's death."