You are a Masterpiece.

As an artist, you take on an oath...

...More like a curse.

You dream and dream.
You sweat yourself over the smallest details.
You punish yourself for not being perfect.
And since you're not perfect, you're art, "obviously," follows that.
You scribble
and doodle
and scrap it
and ruin your favorite pair of jeans with oil paints
and spill your heart out to those who will never deserve to hear just how brilliant you truly are.
You get shit.
You get bullied.
You get corrected.
You get put down again and again until you just feel like laying there.

Still...

You get up every morning.
You break out that canvas.
You pop open those paint tubes.
You break out the pencils and erasers...
...So many erasers.
And every once in a while.
You.
Create.
A masterpiece.

And it is this very rare masterpiece
that defines you.
Nothing else.
None of the scraps.
None of the doodles or scribbles.
It is the masterpiece,
because the masterpiece is the collection
of all your suffering.
And once you realize that you have suffered for your art
you know for a FACT that YOU ARE AN ARTIST.