Katerina

by James Frey

I didn’t finish school, and I walked away from everything I cared about when I came here, and I got nothing to lose and nothing to go back to. When you get scared and tired and lose your confidence and wonder whether you’re doing the right thing, you got shit to fall back on. I got nothing, not one fucking thing except my faith and my belief and my desire and my rage, and you can’t teach those things, and you’ll never find them if you don’t have them, and you don’t. You might think you do, but I can look into your eyes and see you don’t. You got no chance against me, man. None. You might as well give up now.

I don’t know how many times I have sat here in front of The Gates of Hell. Staring thinking feeling dreaming I don’t know how many times. I didn’t understand what I was looking at until now. That for me and for all who came before me every writer and every artist, The Gates aren’t to Hell, The Gates are to Freedom, that the torture and ecstasy, the beauty and love and terror, the addiction and disaster and exuberance, are the price we pay to find it. I’m happy to pay. Whatever the cost, I don’t care. Take everything I’ve got none of it fucking matters. All that matters is that I was here, and I saw, and I felt, and I loved, and I believed, and I lived.