i walk fast everywhere

so i’m trying this new thing where instead of sitting at home talking about how much I hate nola or amherst or anywhere else I write. i used to write a lot, and then things kinda got hectic. i used to have a xanga, but who needs a xanga, really. nola is beautiful and full of personality that hits you when you leave the airport in a way that makes you wheeze faster than the humidity does. but the humidity hits you too and makes you sticky so you barely even notice that mosquitoes have stuck their tiny dino back-from-the-dead bodies onto the unevenly tanned patch on your arm. everyone smells so good that you just wanna follow them everywhere. people say hi and want to talk on street corners. i am from new jersey. people do not want to say hi and talk on street corners there even if they know you. the mississippi river is not my river but it is a friendly river, when you are on the ferry it looks like a straight shoot down the river. the mississippi river makes me feel very black especially when i rode it on juneteenth, no longer being sold up or down the river from the mighty slaveport of the french. but that’s besides the point. all rivers smell like home to me. even the connecticut which for all intents and purposes smells like the old white folks that live near it and let their dogs swim in it and then swim in it themselves, maybe even with the dog i figure. when i walk through the quarter in booty shorts people ask me thinly guarded questions to determine whether or not i am a prostitute. no one cards on bourbon street. men follow me in cars. they honk their horns even when i don’t look at them. i walk fast everywhere.