Paint As You Like
let me tell you a secret. i don’t read books. i read mostly articles on the internet. i read through books. passages. thumb through them. then put them down. my brain can’t focus long enough to get through a chapter. i used to read. i would read a book a week on the subway on the way to work. that was easy then. there were no screens. no smart phones. the internet was dial up then. i can still hear it now. the ring then the sting of 56K. cell phones were phones. i still had attention then. i still had time.
this is no revelation to friends or family but i felt i must come clean. maybe it was the two brain surgeries. maybe it was radiation or chemo. maybe it’s just me. laziness. maybe. maybe i don’t want to know another story. read something i could never write. be overwhelmed with talent. doubt myself by asking, how could i ever write anything worth reading. anything worth sharing. i hate grammar. but i spellcheck. if it lights up red, i change it.
i want to highlight the internet with red. i want to autocorrect injustice. i want to correct headlines that incite violence. i want the media talking heads to realize how they are leading interviews. how they are pushing their own narrative. making folks say things they never want to say. i want people to know the word thug will never be the new n word. that the n word can never be replaced by another word. that words have definitions and history. that the definition of a word does not change over night.
but then i think, does it matter. will anyone ever read this and why am i so compelled to share. who would ever care what a man writes, who doesn’t read books. who has no audience or title. who has the attention span of a four year old. who doesn’t care for grammar. who wants to change the world forever. one sentence fragment at a time. no capitalized words. very few rhymes.
