I returned from an amazing weekend at the New York Writers’ Coalition, where I led and participated in writing workshops. I’ll be featuring blog posts over the next few weeks that are based on writing prompts from these sessions, which inspired me to go places I may not have gone otherwise. If you’re a writer, feel free to use these prompts in your own writing. This piece is from the prompt:
Take a line from a song and make that the first line of your piece.
Back when Mark Wahlberg was Marky Mark,
when the Knicks had Patrick Ewing and Johnny Starks,
we lived in a different place
with life led at a different pace.
This was before the war on terror,
when the economy was so much better,
until increased security made us feel like hell;
this was before the towers fell.
We now have so much stimuli we don’t know what to do next;
we can’t speak on the phone – we can only text.
It’s harder than ever for the poor to get dough;
our kids grow up, and this is all they know.
All we can do is hope and believe
that humans can think beyond what they perceive,
that we put down our phones and instead, read,
and we try to make a difference in the lives we lead.
