How To Be An Artist

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1. Date someone who wears his heart on his sleeve.

When he leaves saying, “I never lied to you,” carve his name into your skin. He is a story now.

2. Get drunk.

Tell the bartender you’ll wait for his shift to end, and you’ll let him take you to his basement apartment in Hoboken to fuck you. Only learn his first name. He might scar you, but you’ll have something new to tell your therapist.

3. Forgive your parents; they never claimed to be perfect, even when that’s what we wanted them to be.

Forgive them and write a tell-all memoir. Thank them in your acknowledgements. This way they’ll be sure there are no hard feelings.

4. Wander a city you’re a stranger in by yourself.

Get lost. Smoke a lot of cigarettes, fill them with hash. Get buzzed and find yourself. Then take a cab to your hotel and throw up that pack of Marlboro’s. You’re a writer, not an enthusiast.

5. Don’t call yourself an artist.

That’s pretentious. You are a Creator, a voice among voices, FOR the voiceless. You’re a soothsayer, a storyteller, the most honest version of yourself. You are not an artist.

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image – iStockphoto