Hey Slick!
Good to finally meet you.
I know you didn’t expect a letter this early in our relationship. We don’t really do letters anymore; we do messages and voice notes, we do stories and videos. Not letters.
Letters are scary, like phone calls and clowns. Little bombs in the midst of all the bills, the statements and the catalogues, with their breakups and their terminations and their ‘thank you and all the best’ that really say ‘never again’.
So I’ll reassure you right away, Slick: it’s not one of those letters.
Not a cover letter, either; I am not trying to get a job (and it really pisses off my parents).
Instead, I’m trying to get somewhere, and I hope these letters will form some kind of map for both of us to find the way. The way to an enchanted world, a living dream, a paradise lost a long time ago - not to the travails of adolescence or to the Tree of Knowledge (though we’ll talk about those), but to progress, reason, civilization, and other misnomers.
And along the way, I’m hoping to be myself. To be authentic, vulnerable, on the edge of my fear, trembling as I send you letters where I feel exposed and, at times, ask you for money.
Ah. Yeah. That’s the catch, if you want to call it that.
Money.
I don’t want to ask for money. But I said I’d be honest so… I need it, if I am to focus on writing. So I’ll overcome my discomfort.
But I don’t want to ask you to pay to read from me. So, instead, I think I’d like to ask, if you are able to, that you encourage me to write to you. Donations are welcome and appreciated; they allow me to spend more time writing you letters and less time writing slides, marketing copy, or whatever else will feed a poet these days.
But I would be a hypocrite if I made money the only valid currency of your appreciation. So, thank you for your support and encouragements in all shapes and forms.
And again, nice to meet you.
Until next time,
Stay Slick