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Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?, Ryan A. Bonner

Student Publications

This memoir investigates the roots of my core anxiety, the incessant but impossible ability to achieve perfection. It is framed by my experience getting a second tattoo, which is a line from T.S. Eliot's modernist poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and ties together both my internal struggle and my affinity for physical pain. This memoir draws a line between the past and the present, seeking to find a connection between struggling with anxiety and engaging in self-mutilation as a source of relief.