The following prose piece is a selection from the upcoming zine entitled Local Lore, to be released next month during the 35 Denton music festival. The zine is the fourth in a series printed by the art collective Spiderweb Salon and will showcase a wide variety of art, prose, poetry, and essays inspired by and within Denton, Texas, USA. Copies of the freshly printed and hand-bound zine will be available at 35 Denton Presents: Spiderweb Salon on March 10th at Dan’s Silverleaf. 2-6 p.m. The show will feature art, readings, music and performance pieces, as well.
“Here”
by Walker Smart
There used to be a hospital here, the one I was born in. The grounds were donated to the city to make a park. They made the City Park apartments instead. Here used to be a pizza place where I played the Dungeons and Dragons arcade game while my dad wrote in his notebook. They tore it down and built something else, but it was here. Here used to be a school, the school where I met my two oldest friends. There’s the creek we used to explore, to us it was a separate world. Here used to be the video store where we rented the movies that desensitized us. We still see the ghost face of Piggly Wiggly through the trees driving down Greenwood. This was the theater we had our first jobs at, where we first stayed out too late. They spent a million dollars renovating it after it closed. When I saw it after I felt a part of me was gone. But you go up into the projection booth and it’s like walking back in time, they didn’t change a thing. That part of a place that makes it home can’t be changed.
Here’s the house I met your mom in. Later it became the house we lived when you were born. Then it became the house I first felt heartbreak in. Soon it will be the house another baby girl lives after she is born. The part of a place that makes it home can become complicated.
You are the place that makes hell feel like home again. You are the place that can make something old feel new again.
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Walker Smart is the on stage alter ego of Walker Smart. He's twice as weird and loves the sound of his own voice even more than the real Walker Smart. The real Walker Smart has lived in Denton, TX his whole life. You’ve probably seen him around.
You can find more Walker here... You can get more Spiderweb Salon there and you can catch them at 35 Denton in March!