titles are hard!
/important??
hi guys,
I was given a writing prompt I wasn’t crazy about, it was like:
“Write a letter or poem to NYC-to its people, its energy, its contradictions, and everything this city means to you… How has this city helped you discover who you really are?..Your letter can celebrate the city or wrestle with it…It can be one word or a thousand….There are no rules-just like New York itself.”
There are always rules. Language is rules, gravity is rules, time is rules yaddayadda, also I bet I couldn’t have written one word, i don’t think that would have ‘flown.’
I wrote the story below as my letter to NYC, but I ended up sending in something else, because I liked this one too much and wanted to give it to Nico.
it doesn’t have a title.
bye!
Handstand Lincoln Whitlock Junior was zero years old when he got to the great big apple. The first thing he did upon arrival was go to the bathroom and change out of his boat clothes and into something a bit more sexy if you know what I mean.
Then he set off! To buy some land as was his god and country given right, and an Arizona iced tea and a banana and a small bag of Doritos the red bag (total $3.00 USD adjusted for inflation.)
Once he had some land that was inside of an apartment with a bathtub in the kitchen and the kitchen was an inch taller than the bedroom on the north side, Handstand Lincoln Whitlock Junior went to hang out on the stoop. By the time his boots hit the red bricky ground Handstand was three or twelve years old and it was June or July and there was no school.
June or July sat leaned on the iron with her long legs tucked under her and batting big eyes at him and that’s when Handstand Lincoln had his very first kiss.
This damn town! He had to get outta there! He kissed June or July a sweet long goodbye and then headed off to the factory to make an honest days wages except no way it’s the summer so Handstand ran all the way to Coney Island. On the way he hit puberty so had to do half the run with a tightening pocket full of rattling bullets.
Once he got there all sweaty from the run he drank twelve beers and smoked a hundred cigarettes and got his nipple pierced, then he rode the cyclone and threw up in his sexy lap.
Handstand rode the subway back to his stoop. Handstand isn’t much for sitting still so he walked the length of the train back and forth the whole ride home, riding in between the cars for the above ground bits smoking cigs and feeling the sunset on his face and not worrying about one damn thing.
By the time he got to his block Handstand was an old man now, by the way he changed his pants. As he turned the corner he could see the light June or July glowed long before he saw her old pretty face.
Handstand Lincoln Whitlock Junior’s knees hurt but he got down on them anyway and knelt at June or July’s feet he said
I love you so much, girl!
And she said I love you Handstand.
And the old man and his old wife made love (New York style) and held hands in their sleep.