Musings of an American Girl

Biking up the narrow street,
weighted down not by the dozen library books in my bag, but by the
weighted metaphor
that the screaming toddlers and their wrought mothers carry,
as those unfortunate mothers all but drag their kids to the
desecrated old Chevy sitting in the driveway,
tired wheels groaning against the fractured concrete.
Three months I spend encased in a room, learning to cry without anger and to love without fear.
Three months taught me awareness, but three months gave me perspective that I would give anything to eradicate.
Now I can’t help but see those who suffer as I did, and the weight of that drags me down, in the quiet darkness, masochistic and foul.
I am weighted
 as I climb the great hill of disillusionment,
weighted as the sweet and aching smell of pot wafts through the street,
 its potent scent reeking of loneliness and infidelity.
I am weighted
 when I reach those great monsters on their hills, white stone giants leering and judging my modesty as I bike past.
 Their imposing concrete frames are the foundations of fumigation, a condescending compilation of constant condemnation.
In the smooth dark pavement,
Unblemished,
 I see the unequal diffusion of wealth.
I see from the humble perspective of a passerby the inequity that every Brobdingnagian rock places in the meticulous landscaping,
as if the owners of such an establishment needed anything else to prove their already obvious wealth.
I am myself a mess of judgements,
a diffuse and indistinct girl, yet really just fervor and flesh.
And here I see the reflection of my children in the windows, of these houses,
 as I bleed out the disgrace that lines my womb.
My blood runs into the street and trickles with hesitant urgency down the hill I had just climbed. It severs the tension lingering in the hot July air like a
butcher’s knife
 releasing the pressure as the world ruptures and splits into minuscule fragments, each telling their story
Of black girls shot in streets
of lesbian couples mauled to death outside of their favorite restaurant
of immigrants starved and tortured in camps, having just escaped from something even worse.
Unfathomable
In this shattered mess of injustice, I bleed out my impurities
 until the streets run red
And in this pandemonium, I find clarity.
I find solace in the only place that has balance.
Equity is achievable, the trees say.
The sky murmurs of choices and legacies,
Of futures for children and of decisions.
Because the only thing we need is to choose.
Every day when you see homeless families on the street, when you see opportunities, you just have to choose.
And as I kept biking up that street to my own home, these thoughts meandered their way into my subconscious, as I hope they do yours.
Such are the musings of an American girl.