listen, your life is not about stability or pragmatism
or your 401K.

it is not your daily apple, your eight glasses of water,
20 minutes of cardio and 10 minutes of weight lifting,
reading a chapter of a Louisa May Alcott book before
you go to sleep at 9:30 every night.

listen, work just hard enough to have drinking money
on the weekends. whatever you do, do NOT go to
college unless you’re planning on dropping out due to
excessive alcohol consumption. then, it’s okay.

be rowdy and exuberant and restless and come unhinged
and cry in public. leave a copy of a Jack Kerouac novel
on the train. write something mysterious on the third
page.

drink seven bottles of warm beer, tell a stranger that you
love them and then throw up on their shoes (but mostly
in your own hands.)

elope with that kid you met at the party where he told
you that his band is totally gonna make it and at some
point in your life, make sure to fuck a guy with a motorcycle
so that you can tell everyone boisterously about how you
rode his hog.

say deliriously depraved things in the confessional at church.

TALK TO PEOPLE IN CAPITAL LETTERS! USE
EXCLAMATION POINTS!

dye your hair. hell, shave your head. kiss someone goodbye
at a train station. leave everyone behind and go to the place
with no WI-FI where facebook won’t make the distance
obsolete.

be mad, be alone, be far away and kill something with your
hands. add “… in bed” to every fortune cookie in your
life. really, it’s a riot.