hand me a towel, i'm dirty dancing

The closing lines of The Great Gatsby handwritten by F. Scott Fitzgerald under a portrait of him drawn by Robert Kastor.

HERE’S TO THE ROMANTIC LIFE OF THE POET, the TUMS you carry in your bag, the string of failed romantic relationships worn like trendy enamel pins on a collar or a jacket, here’s to the kiss and tell, here’s to the bills paid three days late but still paid, the gray hair that might come from stress but also might not, here’s to the second jobs and the third jobs, here’s to sleeping in your car on tour, here’s to the hustle, here’s to the imposter syndrome after book one, the worries you won’t stack up to your peers, the worries you won’t stack up to yourself, here’s to the amount of times your mother asks when you’re going to get a real job, here’s to you doing a real job every day, here’s to the emails and the marketing and the performing and the writing, here’s to estimated taxes, here’s to being your own therapist and still needing a therapist, here’s to the stories you keep to yourself, here’s to the rent check paid by book sales, here’s to the sweat on your palms

It is awful to want to go away and to want to go nowhere.

I am too full of life to be half loved.