Artist

I never tried in your class. I gave up trying long before I even stepped in this class the first day of school. More often that not, I was goofing off in your class than working on the projects and classwork you assigned. Of course, I’m a somewhat obedient student. I turned in all of my work. But I never really tried. I gave that up.

And then the fool’s dream I was chasing turned around and hit me. It left me sitting on the side, wondering, what did I do wrong? What did I do to deserve this?

And on the last day of school, I came by. A friend had told me you posted a work of mine in the hallway. I wasn’t proud of it. I didn’t try on it. It was just another work I turned in for points. I didn’t understand why you would post it. But when I took the poster of the work from your hands, you told me, “I wish you could see the beauty in all the works you had done this whole year.”

And for a moment, looking at my work, I thought I saw a beautiful work. For once, I actually saw my own work as a something, not a waste of time. I saw that it had a meaning. And I started crying. Because I gave this up. I gave up pursuing this dream of being an artist, to create, to imagine. I had stopped trying to create two years ago, back when my teacher had commented on how he loved the beauty of my design I had made for the final project, encouraging me to keep going. Back when my family had torn all my artwork and destroyed years’ worth of writing. When I started writing rant poems and stories in secret.

Art is such a beautiful creation. But it comes with a price. And I paid that price. But it’s not something I would ever give up. Art is precious. Art is more than just painting a piece. It’s more than thinking that you would live on the streets. It’s a creation. It’s a poem. It’s a sculpture. It’s a story. It’s the work you put all your heart into.

And I — I don’t mind being a “starving artist” for a little while. It’s not a stable career. But I can hope a little longer with this dream. There is no shame to being an artist, no matter what they say.

Let’s keep drawing.