I would think to myself as I stop mid-chugging my sweet tea not even playing it off like I wasn't a Literal-thirsty-bitch. (Not to be confused with a thirsty bitch normally denoted in the slang of the today's modern youth).

I would; smiling wide;

with mouth and eyes,

And in truth,

I'd say,

"Well , I wouldn't normally describe my writing. I mean; hmmm....

I mean that i have trouble describing my work because each piece is unique and purely it is what it needs to say; whatever the case may be.

So for me to describe them I'd just need to read em to you. Honestly.

Alot of people say I use big words to sound smart or to be aloof, but I don't, and I don't argue.

Though I do not agree.

I just can't imagine performing several sentences denoting meaning when nuances that could understood by an instance of a single words usage exist. Language is a tool that can be emhanced and should a word have its meaning being equivalent to the most pertinent sum of what I have to say; then damn it! It is what I'll say."

[I'd finish saying this followed by a silence long enough that I start to second guess my confidence in my answer and I'd shake my head like an overthinker and say,

" Nah, really if i had to sum it up another way I'd just tell you "I like Turtles, and then drool a bit."

After which point my cheeks would burn rubicond and after chuckling I'd return to sip at my sweet tea where I sit.

"So what do you write?"

"Are you sure you want me to answer that?"

"Yeah, go ahead, I'm curious."

"Well, okay then... I write whatever pops into my head. Dark, sweet, fluffy, romantic, historical, modern, fantastical, realistic... full-length novels, short stories, and poetry all."

"I don't understand why I wouldn't want to hear about that. What's your most recent project?"

"Um... I've been working on a series of fantasy adventure novels lately. There's a little bit of romance, too, but they're also a bit dark. If you let me tell you the details, though, we'll be here all night."

"That sounds really cool. Maybe you can tell me later? Are your stories always a bit of everything?"

"Yeah, usually. My brain is so chaotic that I usually end up mixing the genres around a bit. No, a lot."

"So if you had to describe your writing, what would you say?"

I pause. "My writing is the contents of my brain transcribed onto paper. My writing is the focused description and explanation of portions of the universe that exists inside my brain. My writing is how I word-vomit characters and places and scenes and plot-lines and impossibly complicated, tangled relationships and abstract concepts into some form that other people can maybe understand.

"My writing is also my therapy. It's how I evict all of the nightmares and negative things and crazy-person rants, usually as poetry that makes me want to cry at my own negativity when I read it again later.

"My writing keeps me sane even as the process of forming new worlds and meeting new characters and adding more planets and concepts drives me toward insanity from trying to keep all of it safe. My writing is the ultimate culmination of everything I've read and everything I've built in my mind and all of my desires to share it.

"My writing is my world. I survive in the real world, but I live in my writing."

He stares. "Wow. That's..."

"Are you regretting having asked?"

"Nope. I don't know if I could survive in your writing, but can I maybe live in your head?"

"So you're not really a Writer..?"

"Huh?"

"...your profile said: WRITER."

"I am. I am."

"Oh."

"---"

"Well then you didn't really ask me that... for real did you?"

"Ask what?"

"What--- G-E-N-R-E."

"Uh yeah ..I di--"

"Oh my gawd, I.. Bzzzz, you know I just ...I gotta take this (points to cell)... so sorry..! Yeah, it's my Bestie. You know, Bippito Skippito!?! Sorry, sorry. Family emergency. Do you have a pencil or ...?"  Digs for fav pen out of backpack.

"..uh no.."

"It's ok, ok. I got some here... do you have paper...?" fumbles for journal.

"Mm no...Napkin?"

"Oh... yeah ok. Great. Thanks. ...Hi, Tito-Bippito? I'm on my way... just a sec... here..." mouths CALL ME; winks and points to phone while backing out.

"Your number (WOW) ... thanks... Er.."  Looks.

On the napkin: 1-800-GONRE.

[Whew... Never EVER tie yourself to a Genre!]

04.19.2023

What's Your Genre? challenge @Prose

A sudden fling and I'm lost in vibration. As my somewhat pleasant meadow pasture has absolved from all fields of vision. Twinge to the third eye, and a darkening hue. This is when my projection had turned nightmarish, I wish not to pursue.

A maze of rod iron steel, cages of unbeknownst creatures. An unrecognizable self, forced to crawl, as my presence becomes known to an overseer. Suddenly, I'm forced to hurry, chased as I cry. My body pained with disease as I evoke an insinuation I may die.

I'm aware of my soul, not attached to this body. But still forced in struggles as I ascend lengths upwards and downwards across this prison so foggy. An evil lurking, manifestations of potent energy. I fear for this vessel as I creep with lethargy.

After what feels like must have been hours. Land and wide open space, perhaps now help I could discover. Still I must run, now able to stand, the maze dissolving. Bullets now surround me through shots revolving.

I wish to leave, I wish not to pursue. With usual ability to escape nightmares, how could this horror feel so real, so true? A heavy breath, one not like my own. My body suffering, but I must mask, and silence each groan.

Hours drag on, running in fear. I wonder now what would happen, if I just surrendered, dropping down here. And so I wept, and I bled, I remember the pain. But after this experience, never would I have to perceive again.

In nightmares, I wish not to pursue, I find purpose when I am rooted till the situation runs through. A journey, one that's dimensional, through realities untouched, do nightmares as these leave me to feel like a speck of useless dust.

I hesitate

I take a shaky breath as he waits

Papers of answers fill my mind as I contemplate

"My writing is an impulse"

The words bring up the speed of my pulse

I look up, expecting him to look repulsed

Instead he tilts his head for me to finish

I continue my deliverance

"My writing is a resistance

To my own regrets

To the world

To my own mind

My writing is a hive for the words I could never say to my own spite

Because all the words I could never say are the beginning ideas for what I will write"

“I write all kinds of genres, mostly comedy. I’ve been told that’s my best strength writing-wise. Well, so some people have a set formula for how they write and if I think about it enough I guess I do. I always start with an idea. It can be what the story is going to be about, a certain aspect or plot point of the story, something along those lines. And then after I get that idea fleshed out in my head, I ask myself ‘Why would anyone want to read this?’ If I can’t answer that well enough, it’s probably not a good idea, and I end up scrapping it.”

“How do you get your ideas?” She’ll ask me. Hopefully she will, anyway. I wouldn’t have wanted to bore her out of paying for my meal.

“I tend to write about either things that have happened to me or things that make me question how I would react to them. When it comes to writing I’m very psychological, and I think part of that comes from a form of anxiety I get when I don’t know how something I write will be criticized and reviewed. By writing mainly about topics that spark a reaction out of the characters, it turns people from seeing me as a strange author and instead considering my characters and the overall story weird while I get to keep my title as someone who’s ‘done it again.’

“Another thing is that I only write when I think I have something. If I don’t have anything, I’m a shitty author with bad ideas. But if something comes my way, and I see something in it that seems intriguing, I have to go for it. Not everyone is given the gift of ideas, sometimes ideas are thrust upon people and they have only themselves to turn them into unique pieces of art. If I get an opportunity to do something that can create a desired effect, I’ll take it.”

“Interesting,” she’ll say, and more often than not, she’ll ask me to make a story as if I can create a good one out of thin air.

“What should happen in the story?”

“Someone dies,” she’ll say, being from one of the Garfield Park suburbs of Chicago.

“Alright,” I’ll tell her, and I’ll get on with the story. (For effect, the following paragraph is an example of such a story I could give.)

Fifty years ago, and old man died. He left behind his watch, which they collected off of him. He left his sunglasses, which they took from him. He left his organs, which they came to harvest when it was discussed in court that no evidence on record proved he ever said no to being a donor, and with no remaining family, his body was shipped all around the world for many different people to use. What a slut.

She’ll think I’m funny, she’ll love me, and she’ll pay for my meal. And I’ll love her.

I don't know if it's how I write. It's why I write.

But maybe it's why everyone writes i don't know.

I'm dramatic as shit, and I have too much time to think.

I've begun to recognize the voices in my head.

Sometimes I try to write how I see, if that helps.

But it's never been about how to me. That changes with the weather.

It's always been about why.

And I write about why.

I write just to figure out why.

I write until I find out why.

Shit. you see the dramatic yet?

Anyway, it's like I got thoughts and I wanna share them. And in writing is the way to go. If they don't wanna listen to you, you don't have to stop writing, they can just stop reading. And somebody, somewhere, will. Maybe. And you can always go back and read, even when you're different.

If I forget what I'd been thinking, I can go back and read, and it's like old me is talking to fture me. and I can add. well, this is what we know now.

And sometimes, I can't speak if I wanted to. Usually when I'm mad. Sometimes, I can't speak until I figure out why, so I write. And sometimes, speaking's not enough.

But I think this was a pretty darn good example of what it's like

when I write.

I write about people. People in the projects. People in trailer parks. People who haven't worked a day in their life and people who work 18 hours a day 6 days a week to keep their lights. People of color who have more normalcy and depth than the media depicts. People who hustle until the sun greets them and people who are so stuck in their sorrow they haven't seen the sun in weeks. People who prevail. People who were dealt a bad hand and still found a way.

So Lieutenant Carver and his former partner drink cans of beer in the police station parking lot. It’s the final season of The Wire, so we’ve seen the officers make mistakes. A recent one ruined a young boy’s life—his foster mom gets third degree burns after a Molotov cocktail attack, and he ends up getting brutalized in a group home. That knowledge haunts Carver. He was a bit of a knucklehead in his early days, but he’s since grown to be a competent cop and a good man who really tried to help that poor kid. “We thought none of it mattered,” Carver says, “but it did.”

He crumples up this cheap beer can. He can’t let go of all the fuckups he must have made when he was young and stupid, and he can’t let go of the fuckup with the kid, and he can’t shake off the fuckups he has yet to make even when he tries to do right, so he just crumples up this can and hurls it onto the station’s roof, where there’s already a pile of a thousand other empties other cops have thrown.

I try to write the beer can.

I think I’ll have the blackened salmon.

Oh. Okay.

Most people don’t ask me that. They just kinda say “that’s cool” and move on.

Alright, so…I like, like a lot of different stuff. I’m a Gemini, so I’ve got my hands in a little bit of everything but uh, yeah…

Poetry is my first love. But it’s honestly not my strength. I’m working on a few novels that have a lot to do with like, mental health and breaking cycles, generational patterns, stuff like that. They’re kind based on my experiences but also not really. Oh, and I really dig horror and sci-fi so I’ve got some stuff for that, too. I have this whole 5-10-15 plan as to when and where I’m gonna put stuff out.

Yeah, years.

I’m not all that patient but I am kinda methodical so I think it balances itself out. I know fifteen years is a long time but I’ve been at this for like a decade already, so it’s whatever, honestly.

Oh, and I have a lot of creative non-fiction and some essays but I have no freaking clue what to do with any of that…maybe start a blog or something?

What do you mean, “what’s my vibe?”

I guess like…kinda reflective and flowery but also a little dark with this “who hurt you” tone. I try not to be too depressing. I’m secretly a huge optimist, but don’t tell anyone- moody and mysterious is kinda my brand-

Seriously? Right here at the table?

I thought this was a date, not an open mic…okay, lemme get my phone.

One sec.

Okay, this is a piece I wrote for this website called Prose…now, it hasn’t gotten a lot of traction but this one writer I really admire liked and reposted it and honestly that’s good enough for me…

Sure. I’d love one. Whiskey ginger, no ice with a lime.

Yes. I know. It’s an old man drink.

Ooh, hurry back. Just found the post.