Is it better to flash and burn or a slower, safer life if you are an artist?

Some say it’s better to live hard and die young.
I’ve always heard this, and I’ve
Always wondered.
Is it true ?

I am envious of people who blaze
but what about the slow
bright flame?

What do I choose as a writer?

Some choose drugs, write great things and die early.
Some choose drugs, write great things and live a long life.
Some choose drugs and die of an inflated ego.
Some have no interest in drugs.

I drink green tea, not decaffinated.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter.

You have to write (or paint or compose)
no matter what, whether as a nova or a sun
that blows up after a long life and closes
into itself, a black hole, invisible against
black space except for the ghost revelations,
the things that vanish into the blackness
within the blackness.

You write your soul, you burn bright, but no one knows.
You don’t get rich,
You don’t strip naked
For the media.
You don’t dice with death.
No scalding fires.
No crash and burn.


The brief exorbitant life of the streaking comet:
Sometimes it is a cliché
perpetrated by romantics
and perhaps a few drug addicts.
But perhaps sometimes not.
I think the real trick is to recognize
and acknowledge the consequences of each choice:
the fire, the flash or
the slow low burn;
what happens to your skin.