Skate Park Kid
The learning curve arrived at three in the morning
with two armed guards and one unaffected
nurse greeting me near his curtained
guerney. He was raging against
restraints with words like suicide
and speeding car. Oxycontin.
I know when he cries
he cries smaller, grinds longer
rails. He’d pop-shove along Greyhound
bus curbs for a ride back to the coast.
So he says. A box of Pacific
sand in his father’s trunk, Burnside tickets,
that one picture of his mother. Everything he hates
rides with him when he runs. Stay
and meet yourself—I want to tell him.
He was a Sunday born in June, the little boy
without a captain’s mask. I see this
when he grinds, when he stand-flips,
when I won’t post his bond.
**
Previously published in Temenos Journal.
wow
wow!
beautiful!
mm- thank you. and i am glad to say we both survived the poem.
It’s what people see when you peel the sticking plaster from the wound. Wonderful life-observation, wrapped caringly in words.
neil- good to hear from you, and yes, what is beneath the bandage? so much pain we each carry. we carry alone and sometimes with each other. but in this case, it hurt to say no to the kid.
Makes me ache.
kathleen- thank you for reading. the ache- oy. what i have are questions, what i want are solutions.
Sometimes it hurts me worse than it hurts you, really is true. Or maybe not. Who can measure another’s pain? I guess there’s always enough of it to go around. This poem certainly makes that clear enough.
laurie- and as you would especially relate, the mental health providers are few and far between. to get help- impossible only too often here.
This hits close to home. You have no idea how much I didn’t want to finish reading it once I’d started. But I’m so glad I did. “Stay and meet yourself.” A wish. A dream.
This truth is hard but, as always, thank you for not being afraid to tell it.
andrea-your words help. it is hard to stay and meet ourselves. easier to run. at times i feel i already know his future, i want to urge him to do it now, later just gets worse.
he cries smaller, grinds longer /
rails.
so good.
rose- we probably all know someone who cries smaller, hurts bigger. huh. oy.
it’s perfect, perfectly said–
high praise, thank you!
Uncomfortably good.
kass- good to hear from you. some moments fade away, some stay firmly present, in detail. this stays with me every day.
Sherry,
just a note on your comment re: abuse — I always thought we might be kin.
katy- i sensed it, too. didn’t matter the details, just knew we had the same current running beneath our feet.