The first sleeve on my left arm will be a reaper symbolizing death and he is reaching out to a dark figured woman with blood on her hands presenting a baby wrapped in a torn American flag soaked in blood. This symbolizes my mothers abuse and abandonment, which at the age of 17 led me to suicide that almost killed me. It also symbolizes my sacrifice for my country when I was wounded in Afghanistan. Also the betrayal of it towards me and my fellow combat veterans when we came back for treatment, which made me realize it is not the infallible ideological beacon I once thought it to be.

The second sleeve on my right arm will be a quote “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee”. The quote will be in the middle of a dark abyss of some sort with on one corner a dark creature reaching over and pulling a lighter entity on the lower portion of my arm who is visibly struggling to get away but still gazing into the dark figure, but is being pulled in towards him. This symbolizes my struggle with my mental illness and my false ideological fight in the wars. I fought monsters only to see myself struggle not to become one myself. Also the more I looked into myself or the abyss, the more my mental illness and trauma reflected back inward becoming toxic and finding myself struggling to not be reminded of the past and let it consume me.