A sharp snap against the cracked concrete.
My body veers to the left at street sign,
the city still hasn’t come out to fix the half bent
Hillside Terrace.
Tall homes loom over my shrunken form.
A single pale light illuminates from a window
a woman hunches over a bright screen.
Lime-green shorts
dance through the front yards and lawn gnomes,
Through the flower beds and twinkling christmas lights.
Shoes
smack, echo through cul-de-sacs,
the only sound for miles and yet it’s still too loud.
A lonely bark from a nearby house,
maybe it can sense something
is happening, like how dogs can sense earthquakes.
Or maybe it wants to feel the freedom I’m feeling, sprinting
despite the stitch in my side, running through the solemn streets
and breathing life into the rising sun.
Slowing down a breath fills my lungs.
It’s just me, the lady, and the dog
to witness what happens every morning since forever.
A cold stillness that washes away with the wind. And with the blink of an eye it’s gone.
People wake up, drink coffee, and go to work.
They drive into the sunrise only to go to another place that is only slightly interesting.
And when they come home the
icy veil layers over the world once again.
James Bowie High school
11