kicking dirt

[tree houses]

Momma told me not to climb in trees.
Something about scarred tissues and skinned knees.
Instead, I stood on top of buried roots
Felt the world stay still as I moved
Balancing on the toes of trees
under the soles of my shoes.

Kicking dirt,
as kids pulled up on branches
Kicking up dust,
as they wielded four letter words and hammers
Always kicking myself
for never staring straight into the sun

not even once

just once
I wish I had let the water boil over
just once
I wish I had kept my eyes off the road
just once
I wish I’d begged for sticks and stones

But you can’t break bones
When you’re balancing on roots in heavy soles.

[fat bottomed girls]

In 2006, me and three friends rushed to grab our bicycles and book sacks on an early Saturday morning. We told our parents we were going for a day ride through the empty sugarcane fields behind school.

As we prepped for our adventure, supplies in hand, one of the dads began to stare us down. He was unconvinced. He accused us of wanting to run off to do drugs in the dirt.

And I don’t blame him.

He was far removed from the concept of “spending time together” with no aim besides time being spent. The kind of misunderstanding born from a life filled with mortgage payments and filing taxes, I suppose.

He started to dig through our bags, only to find ice packs, deli meat, bread, and a huge portable radio - the kind with one of those long, silver extendable antennae. And once he was convinced that our intentions were pure, we set off.

Where were we going exactly? None of us knew - just that it wasn’t home.

The fields are much larger when you see them up close. We were forced to carry our bikes over ditches and we rode through the tire tracks of tractors that made us feel small. But we never looked back. We’d formed a line, yelling forwards and backwards over shoulders as we spoke about our bruised asses from the shitty bicycle seats. We negotiated when it might be the best time to take a break and eat. As I pedaled, I was guided by the boy with the silver extendable antenna - poking through his book sack zipper - playing fat bottom girls or some other song by Queen.

The sun to my back, I was happy.

While this song wasn’t any of the ones that we listened to that day as we rode over the bumpy, dried mud trails… It does make me feel 17 again.

And it sounds exactly like it felt to giggle in the face of a dad as he lectured kids with bagged deli meat about the dangers of getting high.

put the sun to your back.
until next time. - cd