st louis. i went home in january. i could wax poetic stl history for days but it still feels like a compromised place. there’s gun toters, there’s abortion clinic bombings, there’s “legitimate rape”, there’s seedy strip clubs, there’s abandoned strip malls, but there’s jesus. in the black neighborhoods where the whites dare not go and want them to stay, there’s a lot of crime but jesus is also there. it’s a melting pot of midwestern simplicity with licks of northern and southern culture. the people and their varying groups, no matter how extreme, are separated by a single colloquialism: ain’t. some use it their Others don’t but they’re all St. Louis.

listening to r.l. burnside – poor boy a long way from home (1978)

i hung out with family, i hung out with friends. we hung out with strippers. one stripper is a juggalette with a public sex tape on worldstarhiphop. another has a confederate flag tattoo on her back. her best friend works at the same club; she’s dating a tug boat captain. the bartender at one strip club slide me her number and told me to call her. when i did she texted that she’d have to call me later cause she was at the mall with her kids. she never did. she has four kids and a husband: he keeps things open so she does too

my relationship with this city’s toxic. a lot of bad memories of that whole people being “St. Louis” thing i mentioned before. it’s a bit like an over-confidence of nothing with a kill lust towards everything not same. have you seen winter’s bone? it’s that only urban and a couple hours north. despite my grievances it’s still a relationship. with every visit there’s a moment where i flirt, “maybe it’s time to move back.” but those are just moments. moments don’t last and aint’s like whateva