Today, I’ve got New York on my mind, so Featured Friday is all about Citizen Brooklyn. This team of creative minds not only encourages creativity through their magazine … but they also celebrate it, highlighting the story of the author or artist just as much as what that person happens to create. It’s a Brooklyn-esque attitude of artistic progression and cultural innovation and I can’t get enough. (Don’t just take my word for it, Donna Karan lists Citizen Brooklyn among her favorite online reads.)
A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to see “Maxine from Ohio,” (my collaboration with Luke from Purpose of Envy) among the digital pages of Citizen Brooklyn, republished in part for your reading pleasure now:
“C’mon, let’s walk a little more, baby girl. I know it’s hot and you need some water but we’ll be swimming soon enough …”
MAXINE FROM OHIO
The strangest things can lurk beneath the dark and in between.
Like him. Or me.
But not today. Today is a day made for honeyed sunshine and happy walks taken together on green whiskered brush edging the Ohio River. The clouds above are glorious, bubbly air-froth pinned to the bluest of skies.
It wouldn’t be right to tell anyone I found Damien because the truth is, he found me.
(Where am I from? What’s my name? I’m Maxine from Ohio and it’s nice to meet you, too. Where exactly in Ohio? Nowhere exactly, just Maxine from Ohio and that’s all I can say.)
Six months ago he drove me home to his half-empty barn outside of Marietta where we’d find a life simple and quiet as the rain. That night he kissed my nose with hollow affection and said he’d love me one day, just like he had loved Betsy. Even if Betsy was his recently passed 14-year-old Dalmatian, I wasn’t offended. A man’s love for his dog is the purest kind, so in this nose-kiss, I sensed what could best be called hope.
Time before Damien soon became a blur of biting at fallen burger buns or burnt pizza crust – a competitive game played against flies – and sleeping on beds made from concrete sidewalk, hard against my ribcage. Now every moment I live for him; for his lopsided smile, for the warm food he puts on my plate and for his vermilion hair, those curls of red coiling above pale skin that turns beige and freckly in the summertime. I’d lick every one of his freckles if I could. Mmmm.
Continue reading at Citizen Brooklyn …
