What does it mean to hate yourself? Let me count the ways:

1. Not turning in your assignments in middle school because they weren't perfect.
2. Comparing your body to models in magazines since you were ten.
​3. Hitting yourself. All the time.
4. Scissors, keys, whatever you could find to cut. 
5. When you let them not use a condom.
6. Sabotaging your assignments.
7. Allowing him to call you a freak.
8. Apologizing excessively.
9. Calling yourself a monster.
10. Letting him psychoanalyze you.
11. Not defending yourself when he says your happiness is a weakness.
12. He was married with kids, even though he didn't tell you at first.
13. The knife. The leftover pills. The roof. 
14. Bite marks like crescent moon scars.
15. You picked up the scissors again. 
16. The therapist didn't work, you found an alternative.
17. Holding yourself back.
18. You played with his heart because you couldn't find worth in yours. 
19. No more sleep, just a stinging sensation up your left arm.
20. You don't eat as penance. 
21. It's over, but now you cannot forgive yourself. 

This is a chronicle of my own self hatred and issues. These have been dealt with, therapy has been sought out, but I am still working on them and moving on. Healing is not an instantaneous process, but even starting that journey is admirable. Until next time.

- Noah 
Open your mind, be brave, and be kind. 

          Everyone has fears, but which ones are the absolute worst? Which ones seem like minuscule problems to others but can cause terror and in some cases a complete mental shut down?  Thus we come to my conceptual art assignment #13: Create a portrait of your worst fear. Unfortunately I have many, but in coming to terms with your fear it becomes easier to live with. Initially I was thinking of portraying spiders for my arachnophobia, but drawing them would serve no purpose as I knew they wouldn't be real. There was also the fear of being left alone, but I'm quite content with myself at times. Eventually I settled on something I try to ignore: my overactive imagination and paranoia.
          While I do not mind being alone, that changes at night in an empty apartment. The image above depicts a portion of the monologue that goes through my head from time to time, but this time I added an ending in order to make the fear become true. It is not a traditional portrait by any means, giving no concrete image of what is it I fear, but that's just it, I have no idea what it could be. That is the fear of the unknown, what lurks in the corners and shadows of the world that might one day rise up and wreak havoc. Overall it is the fear that I am not alone, a paranoia that I am being seen by something I cannot see and at any moment it could hurt or kill me. Thus each person who reads this might resonate with the text, creating in their mind an image of whatever it is they fear. Maybe if we all have a similar fear it can be overcome, or perhaps we just have to live with it in solidarity. I hope we never have to find out. 

- Noah 
Open your mind, be brave, and be kind.